To Be Human
by EibonVirgo
Summary: Trapping a psychic is a difficult task—easier, though, when they have nothing. She has no name and no memory, and when she gets the chance to escape, she has to learn who she was and how to get back to it while following friends wading through destinies they didn't exactly sign up for. But it takes time to heal—and time to remember what it is to be human.
1. Devil In Me

_**A/N: HERE WE ARE AGAIN. HOPEFULLY THIS IS THE LAST TIME I REWRITE THIS SUCKER—I mean, third time's the charm, right? Right?**_

 _ **Anyways. Enjoy.**_

* * *

\- PART 1 - CLEAN OUT OF AIR -

•••

I was having a pretty okay day before I got electrocuted. Unsurprisingly, though, that isn't actually the worst thing that's ever happened to me.

That sounds odd out of context. I should probably start from the beginning.

Since I've lived here, Divine has never allowed me outside. I don't know why. I've never wanted to ask. But I've learned to sneak out.

On the third floor, there's a vent shaft just big enough for me where I can slide down into the grounds outside, then make my escape out the back lot. I shimmy back up through the vent and into the hall when I have to come back. Easy as that.

On weekends, and sometimes on Monday mornings, even those clerics who always get up earliest sleep in until at least nine. I can slip out without worrying about anyone seeing me—least of all, Divine.

Outside, it's a crisp and cold morning—the sky is gray and overcast, and it feels like it might rain if the cloud cover doesn't burn off by mid afternoon.

I'll take any weather, though; the Movement building is always abnormally cold. Whatever I get, rain or shine, I don't care. I'm just lucky to be outside.

I have a handful of people inside the Movement that sometimes help me get free. Clerics who don't know my name, but will turn the other cheek when I slip past them. Seria, especially, is a godsend; she'll cover for me if I'm gone and Divine is looking for me, and sometimes I'll find little gifts she leaves under my bed. Sometimes it's money for my next venture outside. I've been in the Movement for as long as I can remember, and she's always helped me no matter what without so much as a request from me.

The Movement building is in the heart of the business district, close enough to downtown that I can see neon lights from my window every night. If I follow the footpath underneath the highway for ten-ish minutes, though, I come into the Daimon District.

It's quiet, a little dirtier than it is near the Movement, and full of people with strange yellow markings on their faces, but I've never been bothered by anybody while here. I just get looked over and passed by.

I have no trouble with it, though. The less people who bother me, the better. It's just for safety's sake. It'll get me in trouble if I make any friends outside the Movement and they come looking for me.

There's a tattoo and piercing place on the corner of the main boulevard, squished in between a card shop and a garage. I've been there a few times, usually after I've saved enough of the money Seria leaves me to pay for something. On the inside, it smells clean and cool, and there's always something with a lot of guitar playing on the record machine in the corner by the waiting area chairs.

Yoshiko Inoue is at the counter, as per the usual. She's a plump, tall woman almost Divine's age—taller still with the help of the high heels she totters around in—with a sparkly septum piercing, tattoos peeking out of the neckline of her top, and wavy hair dyed a bright cyan.

"C," she croons when she sees me. "It's been three months too long, sweetheart."

"Hi, Inoue." I boast a smile.

"What brings you around?"

"Just wanted you to check how my forearm is healing. And maybe get some more ink."

"Sounds like a plan." She punches a few numbers into the cash register. "What'll you have?"

"What do you suggest?"

"I'll charge you the minimum and think of something pretty."

"Deal."

She passes me the usual paperwork to sign, and I hand over the money and put my signature in all the necessary places. I'm two years short of the legal tattooing age in Neo Domino, but Inoue doesn't know. The Movement has all sorts of materials to fake credentials and identification for members who need to falsify their identities or otherwise hide their abilities. And I'm good at sneaking in and out of places I probably shouldn't be in; doing things I probably shouldn't be doing.

I've only ever used it a couple times—Seria confiscated it from me when she learned that I had it. Lucky for me, Inoue hasn't asked for it since the second or third time I showed up here, about a year ago when I first started sneaking outside. I've been here for two piercings and a few tattoos, and I spent enough time talking to her in the beginning that it didn't take her long to recognize my face.

I shove the receipt from the transaction into my back pocket, and Inoue hands me the tattoo book before we walk back toward her chair. I flick through a few pages, and when I decide what I think I want, I sit down and Inoue starts to prep my skin and her tools.

"Your last one looks pretty good," she says, turning my right arm over. "You take good care of your ink, that's for sure." Her voice suddenly changes as she says, "What's with all of the welts?"

It takes everything in me not to yank away from her, but I do turn my inner arm away from her to keep her from looking at the blood bruises and protruding veins beneath my skin. "Work injuries. I'm used to them, they're not as bad as they look."

"Mmhm, I remember something like those on you last time, too. Must be a pretty dangerous line of work."

"Yep," I breathe.

"What do you do again?"

"Electrical engineer," I blurt. I can't remember if she's asked me the question before, much less if I answered the same.

"Right, right, got it." I listen to the sound of her washing her hands in the sink behind the chair before she pulls her gloves on; the damp wad of cotton she rubs over my arm is a familiar, sort of soothing feeling. The razor blade that comes next almost tickles.

I've got three tattoos already—a bouquet of roses on my left shoulder, a compass rose on my right forearm, and a blur of clouds down toward my left wrist from my elbow. This will be my fourth; a flock of ravens to mingle with the cloud cover.

I watch her feed the design through her stencil machine, and I stay perfectly still as she dabs my skin with some water and presses the stencil on; it leaves a bluish ghost of bird shapes flying from my elbow to my mid-forearm.

There really isn't any meaning to these other than the fact that I get them when I hoard enough money for outside trips—they're mementos to remind me that I've been outside. That I've tasted freedom for more than a few moments. And they're pretty to look at when I get the opportunity.

I tilt my head back against the headrest as she prepares the needle and the ink. I only look up again, eager to watch her work, when the ointment that's supposed to hold the stencil in place gets slathered on my arm. Then Inoue finds a seat, picks up her buzzing needle, and goes to work.

Whenever I go, I just pick ones I think I'll like, often on Inoue's suggestion. The more detail, the longer I can stay outside. My pain tolerance is already so high that the buzzing of the needle against my skin only feels like someone grazing their fingernails up and down my arm.

"What's the news today?" I ask.

"Nothing particularly noteworthy," Inoue answers, without looking up from what she's doing. "Though, last night, there was a high speed chase outside my apartment building. Apparently a couple of turbo duelists got into it."

"That sounds exciting."

"It's been a while since anything really big happened, and that's saying something, that Neo Domino's underground district has been sleepy as of late." She glances up toward me. "Doin' okay?"

"Yep, take your time."

Inoue chuckles. "You say that every time you're here."

"Well, I want you to."

"Most kids who get ink at your age are crying at me to go faster," she laughs.

"I don't feel a thing, I'd let you draw on me for weeks."

"Well, jeez, maybe someday!" She looks back down toward my arm; I watch the ink bloom along my skin. "Hey, you hear about the Fortune Cup?"

"No," I say. "What is it?"

"Christ, kid, you definitely live under a rock."

"So to speak," I mumble.

"The Bureau Administrator, Goodwin, he's holding a tournament in the Memorial Circuit. Duelists from all over are showing up for the chance to duke it out with Jack Atlas."

"Oh, sounds prestigious," I say, even though I only have a very faint idea of who 'Jack Atlas' is. The name sounds familiar, like I must've seen it stamped on something I've read. A billboard I've looked at while walking by, or something.

The words 'Goodwin' and 'Bureau', though, are familiar. I can faintly recall Divine complaining about a Bureau and a man named Goodwin—that was a long time ago, when government workers were snooping all around Arcadia for… uh, something. I don't know what it was. I've never asked. They all left almost as soon as they came.

I spend the majority of the session staring up at the brick-colored ceiling, listening to the needle buzzing, picking out any other sounds I can find. Inoue left the door to her room open, so I can still hear the guitar music from the record player in the waiting room. It's Monday today, and I know from past sessions that no one else is ever in on Monday mornings.

Whenever I get the opportunity to come outside and treat myself to little things like this, I feel pretty good. It's something to cherish and to look forward to. I'll have to thank Seria for the money later, and show her my new tattoo. She worries about me and I don't think she'll ever really stop being upset with me about the fake I.D. thing, but she likes to hear about when I go outside. She says she can always tell when I've gone, because it "changes me."

Normally, I hide all of my tattoos from Divine. I put myself in Arcadia robes when I'm going around the Movement, and they cover me from neck to toe. The first time he found out that I'd been outside, I'd gotten the first one a few days before a medical examination I'd forgotten about. I had to disrobe for the doctor, who told Divine that I was tattooed, and he was _livid_.

The clothes I wear right now, I bought outside of the Movement; if I go out in Arcadia robes, not only would I not fit in, but I would draw attention to myself. Vice versa, I hide these clothes when I'm not wearing them. I don't know what Divine would do if he found them.

There's no clock in the room, so I don't know how long it takes for Inoue to finish, but before I know it, she's snapping a picture of my arm with her cell phone.

"It looks really nice with the clouds," she says. "Nicer than I thought it would!"

"Good, I'm glad," I laugh. "It is on _my_ body."

"Pretty, pretty. That's going in my portfolio." She changes out her gloves, washing her hands in between, and starts to rub down the tattoo with ointment again. "I don't have to lecture you on aftercare, do I? Bandage on for two to four hours, wash it with soap, moisturize, all that good stuff?"

"Yeah, I think you've read it to me enough times."

"Great." She wraps it in bandages, then in a couple filmy layers of plastic. "The plastic's in case it ends up raining. The weather forecast says it's supposed to pour at some point today, and you didn't come in here with a jacket."

"I gotcha," I say, jumping up out of the chair. "Thanks, Inoue."

"Pleasure doing business with you, C. Stay dry, now."

"I will!"

On the fake I.D., "C" was short for "Chiharu", but that's definitely not what it's really short for. Actually, if I could sell my _soul_ for "Chiharu" to be my name, I think I'd do it. Anything is better than what I'm really stuck with.

Outside on the sidewalk, I can practically taste the static in the air; it'll rain, but it's likely there'll also be some thunder and lightning. I really should go back, but I want to stay outside longer. I don't know when I'll be able to go out after this.

After wandering around for a little while, I find a coffee shop just out of Daimon that's pretty sleepy, only has a few people in it, and order a cup of black coffee.

It only takes a few seconds for the barista to pour it from a pot it looks like was just brewed, and I take the cup to a table in the corner. I read the receipt while I drink it; Divine never really let me have coffee, just tea. He always said tea was healthier for my "growth", but even now when I'm old enough to have stopped growing, he still doesn't let me drink coffee.

At some point, I can hear it start raining, and the other barista behind the counter gets up to close the door and keep the rain from blowing in.

If I could stay and do this forever—watch raindrops race down the windowpanes and sip coffee and forget that I have any responsibilities or worries—I would.

I could run, right now. And I've thought about that a lot. But I have nowhere to go, and the large majority of money I've been saving up, I just spent on a tattoo. I've never really been on my own… and there are a lot of things I just don't know.

And I guess I go back because I'm scared. I don't know what's going to become of me tomorrow, whether or not I go back to Arcadia. I never know.

When my coffee's gone, I stare at the grounds sitting in the bottom of the cup for a few more minutes, until I can't stand the sound of the rain hitting the roof anymore, and I head out.

I go running, the rain stinging in my eyes, ducking underneath overhangs in front of shops and buildings to try and keep from getting wetter. The run back to the Movement building isn't as grueling as I thought it might be. The rain soaks into my skin, and somehow I feel more alive as I streak back toward home.

It's the first time I've seen it for myself without looking at it through a window.

It takes me a little longer than usual to traverse the air vent—I've done it enough that I know the easiest way to climb it, but it's a little bit more difficult with wet shoes. I have to press my back against one side and prop my legs up on the other, then walk myself carefully up until I reach the lip of the vent that curves in toward the inside of the building, to the left of where I came inside. After that, it's only a little ways crawl to the vent cover at the end of the hall on the third floor—it's discreet and a straight shot, and Divine's office is on the eighth floor, so the probability of him being around to see me slip in and out is usually really low.

That is, unless he's looking for me. Which doesn't happen a lot anymore as of late.

I squeeze water out of the ends of my hair and jostle the vent shaft open, then unfold myself out into the hall. When I shut the vent, I slink forward a little until I can see where the corridor cuts into two, just in case someone might be near or coming. I don't hear anyone… I think I'm out of the woods, at least until I get back to my room, change, and dry off.

I brush the water from my arms and shake it from my hair, but as I round a corner on the way to the stairwell, I crash into him.

 _Divine_.

Older than me by five, maybe ten years—lean, tall enough to look over me, with sharp green-gold eyes.

I think I liked him once. For a while, I think I even called him _Father_. But there's no kindness in his eyes now, and certainly no memories of my childhood anywhere in the rage underneath his expression.

Those eyes dart to my wet hair, the plastic around my forearm…

"You went outside again." It's not a question—it's more of a demand, really, for me to admit to my crime, and there's a deathly calm in his voice that makes my entire body feel like it's icing over from the inside out.

"Yes," I whisper.

The first time he caught me, when the doctor told him about the first tattoo, I tried to apologize. He said that, if I were sorry, I wouldn't have done it. I gave up on apologizing as a reply after that.

"When will you _learn_ ," he states. "I keep thinking that we've reached the point where you discover that you don't disobey my orders, but you keep proving me _wrong_."

I swallow. His eyes catch on my new tattoo for a few more seconds.

He grabs my wrist and yanks me along behind him; I don't struggle, I don't make a sound. That'll make it worse.

The door to the stairwell slams against the wall as he wrenches it open, and I hear it slam again behind us about two flights down, on our way to the Lab floor.

"Following directions is an effortless task," he says, voice sharp, as he pulls me down the stairs. "If you listened to me like a good girl, you could avoid this. I promise you that having to take punitive action for your misdemeanors hurts me much more than it hurts you."

I keep my mouth shut as we come out into the Lab floor, then further in to the testing quadrant. No talking back, either. That's worse than trying to apologize.

I'm familiar with the testing quadrant, but it's because I've been here so many times for the same reason.

Divine drops me, actually nearly tosses me, and my back hits the examination table so hard that air whooshes out of my stomach. By the time I catch my breath, I'm already in six of eight electrodes.

Electrocution, I've found, is similar to getting a really big shot. Or having your blood drawn. You don't realize that it's happened or is happening until you're knee deep in it, and by then it's too late to react. It's too late to do anything but try to grit your teeth past the pain. What's funnier to me is that I can never remember what it feels like—at least, until I'm already sitting there with the electrodes reaching beneath my skin.

"This is for your own good, Cipher," he says. And the electricity starts.


	2. Sobered

I can't get out of bed.

My pain tolerance is high enough that I could probably sit in Inoue's chair all day and have her tattoo the most detailed thing in existence across the expanse of my ribs without even fidgeting, but post-punishment, I'm sore all over, and my fingers twitch uncontrollably if I raise my arms even a little.

The blood bruises are the worst where the electrodes went in.

For little things, usually medical examinations, Divine uses harmless stick-on electrodes that go on pressure points and things like that. For my punishments, though, the electrodes grab—they're these little crab-looking things that latch into my skin with claws that leave piercing points like a circle of bites from an unusually large spider. The bruises twirl out of them like nerve endings, dark and spindly and sensitive to the touch. They usually take forever to fade away, and sometimes the entry points of the electrodes leave ragged white circular scars on me.

That's if Divine uses those specific points too often.

At random points across the rest of me—arms and legs, where the electrodes have always ended up—I'll have regular bruises or places where blood has just risen to the surface in large or small amounts. That'll be where I've popped veins.

So far, no _vital_ veins have burst. But a lot of the time I wish one or two would. Just so it would stop.

When I'm well enough to get out of bed and look at myself, I'll have to see how bad the marks are this time.

There's a knock on my door at the far end of my room, and I try to crane my neck far enough upward to see who it is when they enter the room. It's never Divine, but I have to know and be prepared just in case. Just in case today is different.

I breathe a sigh of relief when I see Aki enter, cradling a little pile of ice packs in one arm like a baby.

"Hey," she says softly. "Seria said you were on bed rest… I just came in to check to see if you were awake."

"You caught me at a good time, then," I croak, trying to sound at least a little bit positive.

I watch her as she shuts the door and crosses the room to me. She's two years younger than me and we look nothing alike, but she acts like my sister and she has ever since she came to Arcadia.

She pulls my desk chair around to the side of my bed and sits in it. "I brought these for you."

"You're an angel," I say as she puts an ice pack down on one of my forearms.

She smiles a little, her eyes avoiding my face, and places another one on top of my chest. "I just thought you might… need them."

"Thank you," I say.

She knows. Of course she knows—she always has. She knows that Divine keeps me here, that he has a _Bible_ full of rules for me, and that I get punished every time I disobey. She used to make excuses for him, citing my 'behavior' for the reasons behind his bouts of madness.

She's always there for the aftermath, but she doesn't… _do_ anything. In a Divine sense, at least.

And it's not like I expect her to—I doubt she has the ability to say anything that would stop him, anyways. But Aki _adores_ Divine. He doesn't treat her like he treats me. In fact, Aki says that Divine took her from her own abusive parents. She absolutely idolizes him.

But, in my experience, sometimes I wonder who really is worse in that story. If parents have the capacity to be cruel, too—Divine isn't my father, but he did give me everything I have. A home, a _name_ , even. The Movement is all I've ever had. All I've ever known. I can't help but be curious as to know if a parent would ever punish their child the way Divine punishes me.

Either way, there was a time when Divine treated me like he treats Aki. So when will he depreciate for her? If ever?

I hope he never does—I hope I'm the only one who ever has to endure punishments like this. I don't wish them on anyone else.

"Did you get a new tattoo?" Aki asks, setting an ice pack against my shoulder.

"Oh," I say. "Yeah, I did. I… didn't get the chance to unwrap it. What time is it?"

"It's a little past one, but you were asleep for a long time. Seria told me you'd been here since yesterday afternoon."

I swallow. "Oh well. Sounds like I can take the bandages off, at least."

"Let me help you." Aki untangles me from the plastic and the bandages—I crane my neck up, trying to see if any bruises emerged there from yesterday.

She turns my arm over gently. "Don't worry. No bruising." She sounds a little strained. "It's pretty."

"Thank you," I say. "I'll have to wash it when I can stand."

"I'll do it."

"You don't have—"

"No, it's okay." Aki sets my arm down and gets up to go into the bathroom; she peels her gloves off and sets them on the back of her chair. I listen to her turn the sink on, and the sound of water dribbling into the drain…

On days like this, Aki displays so much kindness towards me that sometimes it's almost frightening. When she arrived at the Movement, she was this spindly little thing with wild hair and burning eyes, power radiating from every inch of her, untapped and untouched and untrained. She blew holes in the walls in one of the fifth floor corridors once when she was upset.

In the first few months she lived here, I would leave little things for her to try and get on her good side, or to make her feel more comfortable in the new place she'd been brought into. I thought maybe a young teenager like her would be a little more frightened about her change in atmosphere. I left books, flowers Seria would bring me, sometimes little notes and drawings, sheets of piano music, anything that I thought she might like or find interesting. She sought me out after a while to thank me for all of the things I'd left, and to properly introduce herself after keeping to herself for a pretty long time.

I had a tough time actively keeping up conversation with her, initially, because she's probably the prettiest girl I've ever seen—wine-colored hair, eyes like sunlight through perfectly worn sea glass, and a too-rare smile that puts sunshine to shame.

I mean, now that I know her… that's Aki for you. Beautiful and quiet, but lethal.

It may be fair to call her more powerful than Divine—then, though, she just didn't know how to control her powers. Seria told me that Divine found her in a dueling ground in Daimon, razing and rampaging without a care as to who she hurt. She'd been called a monster before, I'd been told, and so she was out to prove all of those people right.

It's been some years since then; time and my memories are fuzzy, they always are, they always have been. I know that she carries herself differently, dresses much older than sixteen, and she only ever trains with Divine because no one else in the Movement compares to her. Even if someone did, I don't know if anyone else would be able to survive a duel with her. Divine never took that razing, rampaging instinct from her, and I'm afraid he never tried.

I love Aki dearly—so much that sometimes it hurts to look at her, like I'm setting my eyes on the sun. But sometimes I can't look at her for other reasons, because sometimes she looks too much like Divine.

I watch her gently dab at my tattoo with a damp washcloth. The mark on _her_ arm—the red, angry-looking shape of a claw—stands out against her skin. It's no tattoo, and she's made it pretty clear that she wishes it was. She's had it forever, and she doesn't like to talk about it. That might be the one thing I don't know about her, is what the mark means or where it came from, but, to be fair, she's as unclear on its origins as I am. What I do know is that it's brought her nothing but bad luck. She hates just _looking_ at it. I'm surprised she peeled off her gloves so easily.

"Thanks," I say.

"You're welcome."

"So, what have I missed?" I ask.

"In a day?" Aki frowns a little. "Not a terrible lot. I can't think of… oh, actually, wait!"

"What is it?"

"There was one thing. Divine brought me an invitation to a dueling tournament yesterday."

"A dueling tournament," I repeat. "In Daimon?"

She shakes her head. "No, in the Memorial Circuit. Imagine that, _me_ dueling in the _Memorial Circuit._ "

"That's… where the professionals duel, isn't it?" I say.

"Yeah," she answers. "Director Goodwin is holding the first ever Fortune Cup—he's invited duelists from all over to take part in this tournament celebrating… um, I don't know what. But the winner gets the chance to take on Jack Atlas."

Why does that sound familiar? Almost like I heard it in a dream. "That sounds prestigious. I assume Jack Atlas is someone famous."

"He's the best turbo duelist in the city," Aki answers. "He came out of nowhere a year or two ago as Goodwin's star duelist. I don't think he's ever lost a duel."

"Impressive."

"Anyways… Divine brought me an invitation to this tournament. I'm supposed to be participating in it starting next week."

"Wow," I say. "That's really cool for you, Aki. I can't help but wonder how Divine got the invitation, though."

"I don't know, either. And I'm a little nervous, to be honest. Divine said that Goodwin only gave invitations out to the best of the best. I'll be out there against top-of-the-line duelists."

"Well, I mean," I scoff, "he gave _you_ an invitation for a reason, then, didn't he?"

A crease forms between her eyebrows. "Yeah, I suppose you're right."

"I wonder if he's going to assemble an entourage for you," I muse. "He's kept Arcadia pretty secret from everybody else."

"He was in the middle of making travel arrangements when he called me in to tell me about the tournament. He told me he wanted this to be a kind of 'coming-forward' event for us," Aki answers. "That we're small, and not a lot of psychics know about us because of the Bureau and all of the anti-psychic propaganda going around. I'm supposed to be the 'sneak peek' of Arcadia."

I wince at the strength of the word 'propaganda.'

"Did I hurt you?" Aki says sharply.

"O-Oh, I'm fine," I stutter.

That word makes it sound like people outside are actively living in fear of us, which I feel like I might believe if I was more obedient and stayed inside, but people just… aren't. I've never heard anybody outside, whether I was walking past a conversation or talking to someone else, even breathe the word 'psychic.'

I know I haven't been outside as much as I'd like to, but if I didn't know any better, I'd say that common people are perfectly indifferent about psychics living among them.

But maybe that's because they're totally unaware of it?

"Whatever ends up happening next week, I hope it goes great for you," I say. "You're an excellent duelist, and seeing you on a bigger stage would be a dream."

The corners of her mouth turn up. "Thank you."

"I'll have to ask Divine if I could… watch somehow, I don't know," I say. "But I'll probably have to spend this week being as obedient as possible to try and get his permission."

"I'm sure he would give you at least a little bit of elbow room if you did," Aki adds hopefully. She gets up and goes back toward the bathroom, presumably for a dry cloth. "Obedience is all he wants, after all."

"Right," I say. As she pats the skin around my tattoo dry, I say, "I assume I'm not going to see you a lot this week, then. You're probably going to be spending every waking moment training with Divine."

"Oh, absolutely. I have to buckle down if I want to be at my best next week. Divine even mentioned that he had some new training exercises for me to try out."

He has Aki train with dummies—I've only seen it once, and I'm told that she wrecks the dummies every time. Divine's had her duel a real person, a Movement member, only once, when she first joined, and the poor girl was on bedrest for two months with four broken ribs and a dislocated shoulder. That was after something like three turns.

"Did he…" I swallow. Try to make my voice as gentle and naive-sounding as possible. "Did Divine say anything about hurting the other contenders?"

"Hm?" Aki asks.

"Did Divine mention ways to prevent hurting the other contenders?"

"He told me just to worry about myself," she answers, without so much as skipping a beat. "My only priority is winning my matches and hopefully getting more psychics to join the Movement."

"Okay," I say cheerfully.

I've never dueled Aki. I don't want to. I don't want to know what will happen.

I don't want to risk that someone I adore would hurt me mindlessly because Divine has told her that she can't be bothered with anyone but herself.

Sometimes I wonder about that—if dueling someone she cared about would, somehow, suddenly make her conscious of the destructive effects of her powers on other people. Would she hold back, or reign herself in, or… or what?

It kind of makes me queasy to say that I don't know for sure. I don't know how much of her I've lost to Divine. Maybe that I never had in the first place.

"All clean and dry," she chirps, standing to bring the cloth back into the bathroom. I listen to her wash her hands again, and after she comes back around to the chair to pull her gloves back on. "Are you hungry? I can bring you something from the mess hall."

"Sure," I say. "Nothing too much, though. I'm afraid I won't be able to keep it down."

"I'll keep it light. Be right back." The heels of her shoes make dull thuds against the carpet, and I can hear them begin to click as she passes into the linoleum in the hallway.

I try to manage sitting up, slowly, an inch at a time. The further up I get, the harder it gets to breathe. I feel even more fried than usual—maybe my body is trying to tell me something. _C, remember us? Your cells and organs? Stop going outside, we're dying in here_!

I get up into a seated position, my pillow pinned in between my back and the headboard, and heave a sigh as I catch sight of my desk. I really need to clean up. I can barely see past all of the books stacked up around my lamp, and some of the pieces I recently took out of an alarm clock are scattered on the floor underneath where the chair was before Aki moved it to my bedside.

That's how I learn, though—ever since Divine transferred my studies to Seria so he could focus on Aki, I've had to try and teach myself a lot. Not that Seria isn't a good teacher, or that she skips out on certain things. In fact, she encourages the 'taking stuff apart' thing. Often times, she brings me the things I disassemble. I've been doing it for a really long time, to Divine's disdain; actually, I've been doing it for as long as I can remember. Taking things apart and putting them back together and seeing what does what with what. All of my bedside drawers are full of cogs and springs and gears and plastic and metal parts from lamps, RC cars, remote controls, wheels, you name it.

Sometimes Seria even requests to watch me do it. She says she thinks it's some sort of instinct, maybe something I was familiar with doing in the past.

That's always a tough subject: the past. I can't remember it. I've never been able to. Arcadia is all I know and all I've ever known; everything I knew about outside before I went for myself came from books or word of mouth. Usually Seria's mouth. Divine never wanted to tell me anything about the outside. He always insisted that it wasn't important.

Oddly enough, I have one particularly vivid memory of being young and finally asking Divine where I came from; I realized that he wasn't my father. I put together that it wasn't likely that a man with an angular jaw, hazel eyes, and auburn hair could have a child with a round face, blonde hair, and grey-blue eyes, no matter who he slept with.

Back then, before he admonished every question I asked, I remember him setting me on his knee and explaining in a very patient voice that I'd been in a very bad situation. That he'd "rescued" me from "some very bad people". I went a few years without questioning why I wasn't allowed to go outside after that, because he had told me that there were people outside of the Movement that wanted to hurt people like us; that everything he did for me, every second he kept me inside, was only to protect me from the very people who had wanted to hurt me when I was littler.

But when he changed, when days became me questioning what would happen to me tomorrow, I forced myself to try my hand at sneaking outside. Eventually it dawned on me that I would keep slipping up inside the Movement. Divine always used to punish me for little things, for small misdemeanors, like using my powers unsolicited or asking questions that he didn't feel were worthy of being answered. I needed to breathe. See outside. See if the constant punishment inside the Movement really was better than me living out there.

I'm remaining skeptical about that memory, what he told me about the decorum of outside, because I don't know for sure how someone would treat me if they knew I was psychic. The outside, in my experience, has been a freedom I don't get inside of the Movement, and it's something I would stay in if I had a way to stay.

And the tinkering always makes me think. If taking shit apart is "instinct," then where did I get it? And what time did I have to learn that? How long was I out of Arcadia? What am I missing that Divine has never told me?

When Aki comes back in, I flinch so hard that it sends ghosts of electricity down my bones.

"Oh, are you okay?!" She exclaims, bolting from the doorway toward me so quickly that I can practically feel a breeze from the movement of her tailcoat when she reaches my bedside.

"Yeah, just… ughhh. You startled me."

"I'm sorry!" She tucks my hair behind my ear. "I didn't know what would be best, so I just brought you some fruit…"

"That's perfect. Thank you." It's a couple of apples and a banana, nothing that will overexcite my stomach and make me puke on myself—which was, unfortunately, an experience I learned about the hard way.

"I have to go to training soon," Aki tells me. "Do you want me to fetch Seria?"

"Sure," I exhale. "Why not. I need to get up and walk eventually."

"Okay. I'll… I'll get her. When I have time, can I come and check on you again today?"

"Always."

"Okay," she says again. "Hang in there, C."

"Good luck with your training," I say.

Then she's out the door, I'm easing the peel off of my banana, and I'm wondering how much she'll change again, this week alone.


	3. Letting Go of Little Things

I drift through the week like a ghost. I stay out of sight and out of mind, I speak only when spoken to, and I do everything Divine asks of me without a question or a protest.

If I'm good, maybe he'll let me watch Aki duel. On a television, or—or _what_ , I don't know. Is it a cruel wish to hope that he'll let me accompany them to the Memorial Circuit?

I leave my door open most days, too, unless I'm working on my simulator. That's the one thing I don't want Divine seeing. Normally, if he's ever to come to my room, he knocks, anyways, so I have time to shut my books and kick what I have underneath my bed.

The only person I don't hide anything from is Seria. I recognize her knock, three short little raps, before I call for her to come in.

She's little and slight, only a bit taller than me, with warm brown eyes and mousy hair. Aki may be my friend, but Seria is my rock.

The bar isn't high, and I don't have many people, but Seria… it feels like she's the only one who _sees_ me. I'm invisible inside the Movement unless Divine wants something, or Aki isn't busy. Seria makes time for me. She's patient and kind, and she keeps me from being lonely all the time. I can tell her _anything_.

And the best part? Divine doesn't lay a finger on me when she's around.

"What are you working on this time?" She asks on her way around to my desk.

"A… simulator," I manage, my hand trembling a little as I try to move a wire with a pair of tweezers. "I'm just updating it. Not very special. It's just…" I brandish it for her. "Handheld, see? It was malfunctioning, so I'm replacing a few of its parts."

"Impressive. What does it simulate?"

"It runs duel simulations," I say. "Or, it did before I took it apart."

"Oh?"

"Um… Turbo duel simulations," I admit. "It works pretty well, but I don't have a physical aspect for it. I'd need a lot of alarm clocks for that."

"Hm. I'll have to look into that."

"O-Oh, no, I didn't—"

"Shh. Forget I said anything." Seria offers a hint of a smile. "Feel like putting that down anytime soon? It's about time for today's session."

"W-What? Already? What time is it?" I stutter.

"If you _kept_ a clock instead of taking it apart, maybe you would know," Seria chuckles. "It's all right—I figured you'd lost track of time, that's why I came to get you."

I shove my sleeves back down my arms and peel my gloves off. They're yellow and beaten up, made of a soft leather that molds around my fingers.

"Do you have your stabilizer?" Seria asks.

"Y-Yeah, I only take it off to shower."

"Okay, just checking."

After I've successfully shoved my project underneath my bed and shut my door, I follow Seria down the hall to the elevator. We stand in silence, the only comfortable silence I think I get here, for the ride from my room on the fifth floor up to the deck on the twelfth floor.

I used to train with Divine, every day, for three to five hours, in the testing level underneath the Movement building. At one time, too, he even schooled me in between training sessions. Writing, history, maths… He taught me to play the piano on the baby grand in his study. But that was a while ago, before the Bureau came to investigate us.

Ever since he took on Aki, I train with Seria, and she lets me do my exercises in the observation area. I can look out at the city instead of lingering underground.

I only ever go to the testing area anymore for punishment, anyways.

The observation area is all plated with glass, so I can see the city in 360º. The sun filtering in through them warms me to my very bones. This could be the only place in the building that doesn't have the thermostat on the lowest setting.

"What's on the list today?" I ask as we find a seat. There's a row of long benches on one side of the room, and on the other, where we sit, there are some small tables and chairs.

"I've brought some things for you to Waste. Nothing too difficult. I want to keep building your stamina for as long as we have to. Your body keeps collapsing in on itself."

"Sorry," I tell her.

"No, it's not your fault." Seria frowns as she sets a few items on the table. "I wish you'd stop blaming yourself for things that have nothing to do with you."

"But it's my body, it does—"

"If Divine could control his temper and his punishment-doling hand, you'd have enough nerve endings to last longer than a few seconds." Seria doesn't look at me when she says it. "Stabilizer off. The vase, first."

I swallow as I unbutton the cuff on my right robe sleeve and roll it up as far as I can, until I can reach the armband locked around my bicep.

Stabilizers are a staple for everyone in the Movement—I think the only person who doesn't wear one that I've seen is Divine. Beyond younger psychics that have difficulty stifling their powers and need them for regulation purposes, more advanced psychics wear them just to keep their auras contained. The closer to the head, the stronger the psychic.

Mine's a thick band that I wear around my upper arm. Seria wears hers as a necklace that scoops low on her collarbone. Aki, who has a much higher concentration of power than either of us, wears hers as a hairpin to keep her bangs back.

I set my stabilizer on the table, within reach in case I need to snap it back on again. My fingers twitch with something like electricity—a feeling that makes my stomach turn—and Seria reaches out to lay her hand over mine.

"It's all right. Breathe," she says. "The vase, C."

It's shaky, but I obey. Everything in me is still trembling when I extend all I can and the vase floats up off of the table.

"Good job. Keep it there, you don't have to move it. Just don't let it break."

"I…" I swallow. "What do you mean? Nerve endings? _Seria_?"

"Your powers are dependent on your physical condition most of the time. It's only been a week since he lost his temper with you last, and before that it certainly takes longer than a few weeks for nerve endings to try to recover. If they recover at all."

"Will it… break me?"

"You're not broken, C. No matter what Divine says. But if he keeps locking you in the testing quadrant, your body is going to destroy itself. Your powers working will be the least of our worries."

"If I… If I didn't go outside, he wouldn't punish me."

"He cloisters you, and you deserve to leave."

"But he doesn't treat Aki like that—"

"Because he projects himself on Aki," Seria states. "He pushes you too hard, and he treats you like his prisoner."

"H-He treats Aki like that because she's—"

"What? _Better_ than you?" Seria suddenly reaches out and grabs the vase before it can fly down to the table. "Aki's the most powerful psychic Divine has come across in a while. You'd be more powerful if he didn't bounce voltage off of you, and that's his own fault. And the only reason he doesn't do that with her is because he sees in her what he can't cultivate in you."

"W-What's that?"

"The ability to become him." Seria sets the vase on the table. "That poor girl is the perfect apprentice for him. Her parents abandoned her, and everyone she's ever known treated her like a monster. Divine had a similar experience. So he's teaching her to use that history as a weapon instead of having her learn from it. That's not her fault, either. She's been so hurt, and she's so young that she doesn't know any better. Unless she leaves Arcadia, Divine is her future."

"Would he have… would he have done that to me?"

"He was trying to. But you have no past to weaponize, and you do something that Aki doesn't."

"What's that?" I ask.

"Aki's been taught that, when she makes a mistake, she needs to compensate for it by penalizing herself and then trying again to make her success bigger than her failure," Seria explains. "She's a do-er, and she has been since she came here. You wait and you listen. And, when you make a mistake, you notice it and internalize it. And then you back up and you wait."

"And that's… bad?"

"Not necessarily." Seria weighs the next object, an orange, in her hands. "Divine's methods require an output then and there. Aki's so eager to please that she can deliver that. You go back to your room and shut yourself in to learn about whatever it is you failed at. Then when the chance to try again comes, you take it and you try. You're a purely intellectual learner, and Aki is an emotional one. Divine simply doesn't know how to teach you." She frowns. "Which, obviously, still isn't an excuse for his behavior."

" _His_ behavior?" I ask.

"C, you're only eighteen. Divine is twenty seven, he's a grown man. He's the one who should know better than to treat a teenager like a lab rat."

She tosses the orange up into the air, and it stays there, suspended, following my outstretched fingers as I float it back down toward the table.

"Do you think he'd… he'd ever do to her what he does to me?" I ask.

"Aki?" Seria shakes her head. "I think Divine has his own methods of manipulating her, and punishing her when she doesn't do what he wants. Even his perfect student can fall short of him sometimes. I've never known him to maintain the same standard for long."

"But do you _think_?"

"No, I think she's safe from… from that. I don't think he'd issue capital punishment to her. I'm not sure he thinks she needs it."

"S-So… why do I… n-need it?"

"You _don't_ need it, C," Seria replies softly. "You don't need to be punished. _Ever_."

In silence that's half taken up by a million nervous thoughts bubbling between my ears, Seria has me levitate the other two items she brought—a Bible-sized book and a drinking glass. The only words we exchange are when she tells me to switch objects, or if she urges me to keep going.

She has a gentle voice—soothing. When Divine used to teach me, he would shout. I think Aki must respond well to it. I didn't. I'm wondering if Divine was, maybe, gentle, in another life. Or maybe not.

When Seria has me take a little break in between floating objects, I say, "Seria? I'm thinking of asking Divine if I can watch Aki in the Fortune Cup tomorrow."

"Really? Is that why you've been so quiet this week?"

Heat rushes upward into my cheeks. "I-I guess. I just… I thought that if I was super obedient, he might let me."

"...I think it's worth a shot to ask."

"...what is it, anyways? And why is Aki going?" I say. "I mean… Aki explained it to me, but I still don't really understand. She said it's huge, for prestigious duelists… the Movement isn't even public, I thought, so how did Divine get her an invitation?"

"I'm not clear on his intentions," Seria says, "but it seems like a way for Divine to finally start showing off. He's been honing Aki for so long, it seems like he's finally satisfied enough with her skills to show her to the world."

"But… why?"

"He told me it's to try to publicize the Movement," Seria remarks. "Look at us. A twenty story building with forty whole psychics. He's been lying low since the Bureau investigation, and that hasn't exactly done wonders for the membership he wants us to achieve. He thinks that showing off Aki will hook psychics in the city who don't know about us."

"And the invitation?"

"Between the two of us? The only reason the Bureau left us alone all those years ago was because Divine dug some things up on the Bureau head, Goodwin. Something tells me that he pulled those strings again to secure Aki's invite."

Divine… _blackmailed_ the _head_ of the Security Maintenance Bureau? That's something I've never heard before. But it sounds like something he would do.

Seria starts tossing things into the air again, and I hold out a hand to try to catch them. The vase, the orange, the book, the glass… they bounce around over the table as if caught in a breeze.

"Do you think it'll work?" I ask.

"Who knows? Divine doesn't really go out recruiting anymore."

"Will they… will they like it here?"

"Maybe?"

"...do _you_ like it here?"

"I like the idea of Arcadia," she replies without missing a beat. "As a psychic in a city overpopulated by common people, with not a lot of people who can relate to my experiences, I like the idea of a place where psychics can go and be comfortable among their own. The execution of it, though? Not my cup of tea, I'm afraid."

"What do you mean?" I say.

"Psychics are human beings—we just have a little extra something that common people don't. This place—" Seria gestures around us, "—reads like a cult. Like we psychics are somehow inundated with elitism just because we have special abilities."

"Elitism?"

"Besides the fact that Divine uses an office skyscraper for housing an 'elite' organization… Common people hate us, C, and we don't do anything to try to convince them not to. The pinnacle of organized psychics in Neo Domino is Divine, who's hell bent on proving all of the people who wronged him that they were right about him."

"Aki says that everyone is afraid of us," I say, "but she words it like people just… live in fear. Every time I've been outside, people I've spoken to have treated me, as far as I know, like they treat everyone else."

"In my experience, their attitudes change the second they know," Seria states. "It's very strange. Like the knowledge that you're a psychic suddenly makes horns sprout from your head."

"And no one has tried proving those things wrong?"

"I'm sure people have. But when you have someone like Divine, who is out and loud about his bad intentions, people have a reason to be scared."

"S-So why haven't you left?" I say. "I bet you could start a Movement on your own."

"Any one of us could," Seria responds. "I'm here because of people like you—people Divine hurts without reason. I've known Divine long enough that I know he isn't going to change. So I'm going to be the backbone for everyone he hurts, until there's no one left for him to hurt."

I lurch out and catch the vase before it can crash into the table. Seria catches the book and the glass, and the orange rolls off of the table and underneath her chair.

"Sorry," I murmur. "I couldn't hold it anymore."

"That's all right," she says, her gentle smile devoid of any of the darkness our conversation held. "Take a break—we'll go again after."

* * *

 ** _A/N: A little disclaimer, Seria is not (technically) an OC, she's a minor character who appears in the Reverse of Arcadia and Tag Force 4 video games; I just wanted to flesh out her character a little more, since she seems to serve as Divine's right hand in Reverse of Arcadia, and I was curious about what role she (and others) in the Movement might have. The same goes for a character who appears in later chapters, named Kawasaki :)_**


	4. Fever

I put an alarm clock back together and set it to wake me early on Monday morning—I don't know what time Divine and Aki are leaving, but I want to be up for it.

All through pulling my robes on, I'm trying to psyche myself up for asking Divine if I can watch the duel. I've been trying to be helpful and obedient all week, doing everything that's asked of me… I even sat in Divine's office for an hour listening to him answer me after I asked him what I could do to be better. He seemed pleased, and was _more_ than happy to pass on some advice as to what I could do to be better.

All I want is to see Aki duel in a professional setting—outside of Arcadia, where she isn't the best duelist living here and where the only person she ever duels is Divine. I want to see my friend on the field. I want to see what it's like to be an out-loud psychic outside of the Movement. I want a glimpse of what normal people get excited about on the daily.

And it may be foolish, but I want to be out with Divine's permission. It's been so long since I've done anything with approval from Divine—as a matter of fact, he hasn't given me approval for much since Aki arrived.

I'm on the second floor, in the mess hall, pouring myself hot water for tea when Aki comes in to go rifling through the fridge.

"Morning," I say. "Tea?"

"C? You're up early." She's halfway through peeling an orange when she reaches where I am at the kitchenette and leans her head on my shoulder. "I'd love some."

"Oolong?"

"Please."

I reach for a second cup and saucer out of the cabinet over my head, and Aki leans away from me for a moment while I get on my toes for the tea bags. "Are you ready for today?"

"Yeah," she breathes. "Nervous, but ready. I don't know who my competition is until I get there, so I'll just have to hope for the best."

"I'm… I'm going to ask Divine if I can watch," I say. "I want be cheering you on."

"Are you going to ask to come with us?" She replies. "Some of the other clerics are coming, so you should too…"

"I'm going to try," I tell her. "I've been trying to be good… and I've been outside already, so maybe it'll be easier to ask? Since it'll be out with him this time? I don't know. All I want is to watch."

"Do you want _me_ to ask him?"

"No, it's all right! I should do it by myself. I don't want you to fight my battles when you've already got enough on your mind."

She exhales. "All right. Are you going to eat anything?"

"My stomach's been uneasy this week, so probably just something small." I hand her her teacup and saucer.

"Me too—but I just can't eat when I'm anxious."

"You and me both."

Aki and I sit together at the table in the middle of the hall, and I pick at an apple and a banana. Aki nurses her cup of tea, and I listen to the sounds of things in the kitchen settling; the fridge door creaking a little, Aki's cup as she sets it back on the table, my banana peel as it slides under my hand.

I've learned to do that; listen. Picking up on noise has always been a good way for me to pass the time, and it keeps me calm while I try to think of how I'm going to word my request to Divine. What words could I use that would he would be the least able to misconstrue?

Part of me wants to change my mind, and ask Aki to ask him for me… but what would that do? Would that make any difference? Divine doesn't deal with Aki's requests the same way he deals with mine. It didn't used to be like that—I used to adore him like Aki does. He was all I ever knew, and now he hurts me when I disobey. Not that Aki doesn't get punished sometimes if she disappoints him, but… he lets her off easy. I've never once seen her in the testing quadrant. At least, not the part of it that I frequent.

But I can't blame her for that, and I don't. Aki is kind of like me, I think. It depends on the day. The only person that I can hate for it is Divine—for making me love him and then destroying me for it.

Aki stirs a little more sugar into her tea, and I lean my chin in my hand and watch her across the table. She looks well rested, her hair done in little pixie spikes around her face and her bangs twisted back into her stabilizer. A beautiful, silent girl right now… who will she be when she steps onto the field at the Memorial Circuit?

"What?" She asks when she catches me staring.

"Nothing," I say, heat creeping upward into my cheeks. "I zoned out. That's all."

She laughs a little, a sound that makes me feel even more flustered. "You're planning out what you're going to say, aren't you?"

"It's that obvious?"

"I'm telling you, C." She frowns and leans across the table a little. "Let me ask him for you, I'm sure it'll help."

"No," I breathe. "It's okay. I want to do it."

She doesn't look convinced, but she replies, "If you say so."

Is it cruel to want validation? For once? To want to be asking something of him that he finally concedes to? Am I just setting myself up for disappointment?

The waiting is hell and I'm still trying to figure out what to say while my leg bounces restlessly up and down underneath the table, until Aki spots the time on the analog clock over the fridge.

"Gotta be downstairs," she says. "Coming?"

I jump up out of my chair; it makes a horrible screeching sound as it scrapes along the floor, but Aki laughs at it. "Nervous and eager?"

"Nervous and needing to get it over with," I say.

Aki loops her arm through mine and we fall in step with each other. "Don't forget to breathe."

On her suggestion, I suddenly realize how badly I need to inhale. Her hand is curled inward against my forearm, and at some point on the elevator ride downstairs I feel her fingers circling against my sleeve, like an attempt to be soothing.

Is it strange to say that I've never been on the ground floor before? Pretty much the only thing on the ground floor is the entrance to the building… which I never use.

Divine is there with three or four other clerics, and he's wearing the dusty brown coat that's always hanging up on the wooden rack in his office. He's holding a pink duel disk—Aki's, I assume.

"Cipher," is the first thing he says, his voice flat, "have you come to see Aki off?"

I think I feel Aki's nails digging into my arm—and not on purpose. When she's overexcited or anxious, she can be a little abrasive. "Divine, can C please come with us?" She blurts. "I think it would be great if she came to watch, she really wants to, and—"

"Slow down," Divine says; I think it's the first time for as long as I can remember that I've heard him manage something like laughter. "Did Cipher put you up to this, Aki?"

"Of course not!" Aki rambles. I'm looking at her the entire time, trying to read the rushed tone of voice she's taken on. At this point, I can't be upset at her for ignoring my request. It's like she's more worried for me than I am for myself. "Actually, she didn't want me to ask you, she wanted to ask you herself—"

"Why don't you take this," he says, holding her duel disk out toward her, "and wait outside for us?"

That syntax makes it sound like… he might _actually_ let me go. Aki squeezes my arm, accepts her duel disk from him, and starts outside. Even as she's going out the doors with a couple of the clerics, she's looking over her shoulder at me. Trying to make sure I'm doing all right.

But, when I'm suddenly here alone with Divine, I'm suddenly hyperaware of how small I feel and how gone Aki's warmth is from my side.

After a second of looking over me, he says, "Return to your room, Cipher, I've instructed Seria to double your training hours for today."

No. That's a no.

"W-Why?" I blurt. "Can't I… come watch, I mean…?"

He takes a step closer to me and I immediately feel like curling up into a ball. He puts a hand on my shoulder, and it's surprisingly gentle, but I'm frozen.

"Do you know why it is so important that you remain here?" He asks.

"People wanted to hurt me," I say, swallowing. "T-That was what you always told me."

"Yes, you're right. You have an astounding memory."

Funny.

"You and Aki are not the same, Cipher. Though I delivered Aki from danger the same way I delivered you, she does not have to be concerned with people coming after her with bad intentions. She has the strength to send them running. As I said, I requested that Seria double your hours today."

"...but…"

"I know, it's difficult. But I'm forced to get upset with you when you disobey me and go on your little _day trips_. You fail to see that someone could seriously hurt you. Someday, when you build that necessary strength, I will let you follow Aki outside wherever you may please. Right now, it just isn't possible." He starts toward the door, digging for something in the pocket of his overcoat. "I'll have Aki inform you of how it went when we return. You'll find Seria upstairs."

Then he's gone. I stand there for a long time, staring at the doors and wondering what kind of truth I have to be made of.

The little girl who grew up here is screaming and kicking and crying for Divine to love her again—even if it's just one thing she does that he approves of, she'll take it. That's the part of me that wants to believe that I really am here and stuck inside for my own protection. The part that wants to believe that Divine is the good guy.

There's something else in me remembering all that Seria has said. Seria, who knew Divine before I was even born. And I remember the pain and the days stuck in bed, the big punishments for the little misdemeanors. My lack of 'strength' because of Divine himself, according to Seria.

I don't know how long I'm there, staring and standing and trying not to cry, but everything suddenly comes back into focus when I realize that Seria is here, shaking me by the shoulders.

"C. _C_. Look at me, C, look at me. Breathe."

It takes me a second to get my eyes to focus, and when they do, I can see Seria's face close to mine. Her hands are clamped around my shoulders.

"Breathe, C. Are you okay?"

"What?" I croak.

I hear something like glass falling—hitting the tile floor. It makes Seria seize up.

"You have to keep ahold of yourself, C. Listen? Don't do that."

Do what? She helps me onto my feet. I didn't even realize I had stopped standing. I'm still kind of reeling as we get into the elevator, and before I know it I'm sitting down again and Seria's pressing what feels like tissue into my hands.

"Hold that there. Good job."

I didn't even realize my nose was bleeding—Seria makes this little noise of surprise, and I can hear more glass hitting tile. "C, _you need to get ahold of yourself_."

"I'm _sorry_ ," I manage. I don't even know what I did, or… what I'm doing.

"This is the last time I'm going to say it, C, stop and breathe."

I sit there—wherever _there_ is—and try to do as she says and breathe. It takes me a second to stop feeling like I'm just existing, and nothing else, and when everything stops feeling hazy and blurry, I realize that I'm on the counter in the mess, and Seria's at the kitchenette across from me, shaking a thermometer.

"Seria?" My voice is muffled by the tissues, and the smell of blood makes my stomach turn. "What happened?"

"Why don't you tell me?" She stops shaking the thermometer. "You don't have a fever, that's good. I found you downstairs, bleeding and surrounded by glass."

Glass…?

"What happened?"

"I… I went to ask Divine if I could watch Aki…"

"And he told you no, didn't he?" There's a frown in her voice. "I suspected. He asked me to start early with you today and end later than we normally do."

"He said… he said I could go outside as soon as I was like Aki. As soon as I was as strong as Aki." I cut my eyes away from her. "What does that mean? Isn't it his fault I'm not strong already?"

"C, temper."

"What does he want? Is he going to give me a mask and send me out to be the Black Rose Witch, Part 2?"

Seria flinches as a cup on the counter next to her explodes, sending glass flying everywhere. "Your _temper_ , C. I already have to send out to get two windows on the ground floor fixed today."

"I-I broke _windows_?"

"Luckily it's not as bad as it could've been. You're better about wearing your stabilizer than some." When Seria crosses from the kitchenette, she's not looking at me. "I didn't realize you knew about the whole 'Black Rose Witch' thing."

"Aki showed me the mask a long time ago," I say bitterly. "I've seen her come back inside wearing that long cape. I didn't know it was supposed to be a secret."

"Not a secret. I just didn't know if she'd want to tell you about it. Divine's certainly never shown interest in telling you anything about it."

"I can't go outside unless I turn myself into a force of nature, is that it?"

Seria looks halfway amused. "You're not even upset about him telling you 'no' anymore, are you?"

"I don't… _no_." I think some part of me knew he was going to deny me the trip. It was little C who wanted him to give her approval for once. But, fuck him. He didn't have to say all of that other stuff. Spend all this time breaking me and setting a tentative maybe on if I'm ever going to get that approval. Fuck that. I'm going anyways. I'm gonna go see Aki anyways.

"Why… would he… _tell me that_?" I manage, balling my free hand into a fist.

"Temper," she warns again.

"Sorry," I mutter. "You said that it was his fault I'm not strong. Why would he say that he wants me to be Aki-strong before I can go out with his permission? Why doesn't he stop?"

"First of all, you are 'Aki-strong'. It's Aki- _stamina_ you don't have. And that's the part that's his fault. Your body makes a complete changeover of every cell in itself in about seven years, so I would expect you to be fully healed from all of your unsolicited punishment in about that time. That is, of course, if Divine swears on his own life to never do that to you again."

Seven _years_? It'll take my body _seven years_ to recover?

"Secondly, I would guess that he just doesn't want you outside. Or he ran out of ideas for excuses."

"Am I that see-through? That he knew to ask you to double up training today to give me an excuse for not going?"

"Maybe. Or maybe Aki talks about you a lot."

"What?" I say, my face burning.

"He's with Aki plenty more than he's with you, C. Did you go down with her this morning?"

"Yeah…"

"Then I'd say it was less of an excuse for you, more of an excuse for her. She knew you wanted to ask him, didn't she?"

"Yeah," I repeat.

"There you go, then. It certainly sounds like something he would do. He has to tread lightly when you intersect with Aki, which is more often than you probably think it is, because he has to keep her favor. He just has to keep you scared. Case closed."

I swallow. "...was he ever kind? Like… _ever_? Just out of curiosity."

"Once. But it was definitely a thousand years ago."

I take the tissues away from my nose for a second to check if my nosebleed has stopped. "...why the blood?"

"It's the stamina issue. This has happened a few times when you were younger, almost always when you lost your temper. It's the same principle as Aki and her duel damage, where it gets bigger and more powerful with her emotions. The only difference is that your body doesn't have a great time sustaining that amount of telekinetic energy."

"Wonderful." I crumple up the tissues in my hand, but I'm still breathing through my mouth in case the blood starts up again. "...you aren't really going to double my hours today, are you?"

"I'm not sure yet." Seria rests her chin in her hand. "What do _you_ want to do?"

"Well, if I'm telling you the truth—"

"Because I think I have a little bit of work that I have to do, and I'm definitely not going to be watching any of the exits in case somebody wants to slip out unseen."

"...even if someone who wasn't me wanted to sneak out and go watch, how would that person know where they were going?"

"I definitely don't have a map of the uptown district that I may or may not leave out."

"...Okay. That was easy."

"You were going to go anyways, let's be honest here. Divine's made a habit of telling me that I have to 'document everything I see'," Seria replies. "So, just to be clear, I haven't seen anything today."

I can't hide my smile.

"Just make sure to get back before they do. You have to leave as soon as Aki's duel is over. The truck that they brought has a treatment pod for Aki, so even if Aki isn't the last duelist, Divine is going to have her go straight back there to keep her out of public scrutiny. There's a chance you could run into each other."

"Public scrutiny," I say. "Why do I have a feeling that's code for 'picketers are going to start showing up at Arcadia after this'?"

"It'll depend on how much she Physicalizes. Now, if you're done bleeding, maybe go get dressed. Meet me in my office, it's on the ground floor. I'll go dig for that map I don't have."

She definitely doesn't have to tell me twice. I bolt upstairs to my room and peel out of my robes to change into street clothes. Divine got rid of the set I wore out last time, so I change into one of the extra sets I have—black boots, green sweater, and black jeans with ripped up knees. I clip my stabilizer on over my sleeve and wash the blood from my face before I jog back downstairs, my shoes clicking fast against the linoleum.

Down on the ground floor, I finally see what Seria was talking about when she said that I shattered windows. Near the front entrance, two of the huge glass plates by the door are missing. I'm guessing someone already cleaned them up, but… I shattered windows. Even if I get back here from outside without any difficulties, I have a feeling I might get in trouble for breaking things.

Or, what's the probability that he _praises_ me for it?

I've never actually been in Seria's office before. At least, I don't think I have. I have no memory of coming in here, but then again, I don't have memory of a lot of things. It's a cute little room with a comfortable-looking chair at the desk and a pot of flowers on the corner near the computer.

"You found the map that doesn't exist," I say.

"And I penciled the route you won't be taking." She laughs a little to herself. "This circle, right _here_ —" she points, "—is where we are. I know you know how to get through Daimon, and that's the quickest way there. Once you're north through that district, it's five blocks _this way_."

"North through Daimon, five blocks right," I say. "Or west. Whatever. I've got it."

"The event is ticketed, and it's been sold out for months, so the easiest way I'm assuming you'll be able to get in is through the contender's entrance," Seria continues. "It's around the back of the stadium, and it's gated. It'll probably have Security patrolling outside. The way you should be coming in goes right up toward all of that."

"I'll figure something out. How do you know all that about the Circuit layout?"

"I used to go there for tournaments before Arcadia. Any more questions?"

"Nope, I think I'm… Actually… is this all okay?"

"What do you mean?" She asks.

"I don't know. I… I do really want to go see Aki, but I feel like the motivation overshadowing my want to go is just, like… _spite_."

"C, if I had a penny for every time you did something purely out of spite, I could probably buy Divine out of Arcadia."

"Ah… okay? Nothing about how spite is bad?"

"I'm not at liberty to lecture you about it—your spite and my spite could probably have a steel cage match."

"All right then!"

"Use the front door this time," she says. "But take your air vent on the way back, just in case."

"You, um… You know about that?"

She flashes a smile. "I haven't documented it."

"...gotcha." I'm halfway out the door when I say, "I'll be back as soon as it's over!"

"Be _careful_!" She shouts after me.


	5. Brand New Sounds

I think this might even be the first time I've walked out of the Movement through the front door. It's big and plated with glass (and now shattered in places), like in the observation deck, and it comes out into this row of neatly trimmed hedges following the pathway out toward the front of the building. I take my usual path, down outward from the building's side, to reach the path that cuts under the highway into Daimon.

I really am grateful to Aki for wanting me to come watch her, even if we might have two different ideas about how great her powers are. That sounds odd, especially coming from another psychic, but I know that if I had her level of power, I wouldn't want to use it to hurt people.

Then again, I can _definitely_ blame that one on Divine.

Daimon looks as empty as it usually does on Monday mornings, but the weather makes it feel like it's already afternoon. I'm glad my sleeves are on the thinner side, because I'm already breaking a sweat. Then again, I'm jogging.

What is a dueling tournament even like? I've never seen one. I have foggy memories of dueling by myself down in the testing area, and I've seen Aki duel once or twice. I can't remember the exact number. I've shuffled through Aki's cards with her, I've read up on duel protocols, and I have an AI sequence programmed into my simulator… I know all of the tips and tricks, but mostly by examination, less by execution. I can't envision it being anything more than my simulation. I wonder if Aki will envision it being even less than a training exercise.

I recognize the edge of the Daimon district by the coffee shop I always visit. From there, I follow Seria's directions and start five blocks to the right—toward the looming football-shaped building in the west.

The streets and sidewalks start to split off and become this area that kind of looks like a park. Barricades are set up all along the base of this huge building, this _arena_ , I guess. Two people in teal uniforms, Securities no doubt, are meandering along the barricade.

That was… easy. Quick. I jogged the whole way here, and I wouldn't say it took me any longer than ten or fifteen minutes. I guess the hard part is getting into the building without being seen. I can see no big entrance areas like I'd expect crowds to pack in from, so maybe this is the contender's entrance, like Seria said. All gated off, and everything.

There are two entrances, one that looks more like a tunnel off to the right, and a set of double doors up inside of the very wall of the stadium itself. The double doors look more promising to me, so I elect to see what's beyond those.

I cross back from the other side of the street until I'm wading through trees and hedges at the edge of the park, where the grass turns into concrete, and go as far as I can without stepping into plain sight. I need a distraction. How do I make a distraction?

I stand there for a long time, trying to figure out what to do, listening to cheering cresting up over the lip of the open dome. I really hope I haven't missed Aki yet. I'd have come all the way here just to have to go back already.

In the end, the only thing I can think of doing is Wasting. I've never done it outside of the Movement, without Seria around, but it's all I have to go on.

I unclip my stabilizer from my arm, keeping it clenched in my fingers purely for comfort, and raise a hand to lift up one of the barricades.

It's—definitely the heaviest thing I've ever Wasted. I get it halfway to the other side of the street before I have to drop it, but I think it's enough. Both of the Securities start shouting at each other, obviously surprised, probably unnerved, before they go running toward it to try and stop it or move it back.

I bolt for the double doors, swinging myself up and over one of the other barricades, and I don't stop to even think about catching my breath until I'm on the other side.

When I enter the building, it's like I've entered an entirely different world.

The fluorescent lights are brighter white than the ones in the Movement building, and they bounce off of the tile and the pale green hallway walls with an intensity that makes me squint. The color, the light, and the sharp clean smell are all unfamiliar.

I wander a little ways through the hall, looking at doors and wondering if I should open one or two, figure out if they go anywhere, when I suddenly come into a big wide area with tables, chairs, and benches set out everywhere. People are talking quietly, some sitting with each other, others by themselves, and watching a big television screen positioned up in a corner over a big waxy plant.

The screen is flashing through a few different pictures—I see images of what I think is a duel, a big muscular man and a girl with pigtails, but they're so disjointed and quick that I think the duel must be over. Amidst the white noise in the background, I can hear the crackling voice of an announcer narrating, flashes of a few more faces I don't recognize, and some words the announcer says about the next couple of duels.

Then, the camera angle switches, and it's on the field again as lights flicker upward on what I guess must be the next two contenders. I find a seat when I see Aki's face plastered on the screen—I managed to get here in time to watch her take her turn dueling.

The MC in the background announces Aki in a crackly sort of voice, a new contender from somewhere he doesn't know, and then her opponent, a man in shiny armor named Jill deLancebeaux.

The audio is much better when the duel starts, and the waiting room around me quiets to hear deLancebeaux, a veteran, it would seem, pick his first few words.

"I shall show thee no mercy, maiden!" deLancebeaux declares. He speaks strangely—like a character in some of the fantasy books Seria used to bring me when I was younger. "Masked Knight LV3, I summon you to the field!"

It's a little thing covered in medieval armor with 1500 ATK; I've read enough manuals and duel protocols to figure that anything with "Level" attached to its name is only around to keep getting stronger.

"I will now activate Masked Knight's special ability, which shall allow me to deal 400 points of damage to you each time it is my turn!" The little knight careens forward, slashing its stubby short sword in quick arcs, and Aki takes 400 points in damage.

She doesn't flinch, though. At the Movement, damage is almost always real. There's no chance she'll feel even a ghost of pain during this duel. deLancebeaux, on the other hand, might not be so lucky.

"I shall proceed in activating the Spell card, Level Up! Due to this card's ability, I am allowed to send my Masked Knight LV3 to the Grave and build Masked Knight LV5 in its place!"

The monster disappears in a blur of color, its armor peeling away to reveal a larger version of the same knight. It's stronger, though, like I thought, with 2300 ATK. Aki still hasn't flinched. She barely even looks engaged.

"Now I activate Masked Knight LV5's ability, which permits me to deduct 1000 points from your Life every turn!"

She still hasn't moved, and I'm less worried than I am curious at what Aki has in store for deLancebeaux. Dueling has always been child's play for her.

"I will place one card facedown and finish my turn!"

Aki draws a card from her deck. "I thought you'd never end your turn! I summon Wall of Ivy in Defense Position!"

The monster is a big, angry-looking wall of thorns with 1200 DEF—I've seen it in her strategy and in her deck before. I remember when she sat down with me some time ago and we flipped through her cards together. She praised what it could do for an empty field.

I can't help but think about it, but one thing I've never heard her do is commentate. _I thought you'd never end your turn_ , she said, voice all cold and patronizing. She doesn't patronize Divine when she duels him, she would never. So why do it to anyone else?

"Next, I activate the Spell card, Seed of Deception! Due to this card's ability, I can Special Summon a LV 2 or below Plant-type monster from my hand! I summon Copy Plant!"

A twisted lump of brown vines appears, boasting a grand total of 0 ATK and DEF. Another of her key monsters, and the gateway to her _favorite_ monster.

"I'll now activate Copy Plant's special ability, which allows my monster to copy the Level of your Masked Knight LV5!"

The counter on the screen shows Copy Plant's Level as 5, and places it side by side with Wall of Ivy's LV 2. The MC, his voice crackling on the television receiver, says something—and rightly so—about a Synchro.

"Now I tune Copy Plant with Wall of Ivy in order to Synchro Summon your doom—Black Rose Dragon!"

I feel Aki's power reaching out like a force of breath beneath the earth. It makes my fingers tingle with a feeling like electricity—I can't tell if it's a hush in my mind or a hush in real life, in the waiting room or even in the stadium. This is the most powerful psychic in Neo Domino City, possibly, displaying her most powerful monster.

"That card!" deLancebeaux exclaims. "It is the tool of a witch! The Black Rose Witch!"

 _Black Rose Witch_. There it is again. The moniker Aki takes on when she goes outside, when she puts on a mask and walks the streets, toting Black Rose Dragon with her, because she thinks that anyone who sees her will think her evil. If she didn't purposefully bring destruction to those duel rings in Daimon, maybe they wouldn't. But, as long as Divine tells her to pay no mind, she won't. I'll keep losing her, piece by piece, to him, and she'll keep destroying as much as she wants.

I didn't know she was so recognizable, though. That her dragon was that rare, that enough people knew about the Black Rose Witch to name-drop her in a public setting. Or that it would get such a reaction.

The MC babbles something about the title, but I'm mostly blocking out his unnecessary commentary; I'm watching Aki's face, and it's still unchanging. She's not the pretty, serene thing that rested her head on my shoulder this morning, the girl that was practically glowing with excitement when she was begging for me to come here and watch her. This is that ravager side of her that I fear in the back of my mind, that Divine cultivated instead of killed.

Just like Seria said. Just like I've witnessed. She has the capacity to be just like him.

"Now I'll activate Black Rose Dragon's special ability—all cards on the field are destroyed!"

A clean slate for Aki to play with;not even Black Rose Dragon sticks around.

She sets a card facedown. "Now, I activate the Field Spell, Black Garden!"

A forest of black thorns begins to grow along the arena floor. Aki's Physicalizing it so powerfully that I can almost feel vines curling through the floor under my feet. It's another of her favorite cards, because it's a silent killer. Good for quick Tribute summons, every monster's ATK gets halved… It'll break her opponent down in pieces, one Rose Token at a time.

"I'll end my turn now," Aki tells him, before stepping back as if to admire her work.

It's been a while since I've seen a live duel of Aki's… she's shown me her cards so many times, though, that it's easy to know which are her favorites, and I can remember more than a few of their abilities. My mind will take to details, but almost never to bigger pictures.

"I shall activate the Spell card, The Warrior Returning Alive! Due to this card, I can now reinstate my Masked Knight LV3 by bringing it to my hand and then summoning it to the field!" He does as he's described, but Black Garden takes its effect as soon as deLancebeaux finishes his sentence.

A Rose Token grows on Aki's side of the field, and deLancebeaux's Knight flashes a halved set of ATK points across the screen.

"Now I shall activate Masked Knight's special ability and deal you 400 points in damage!"

As soon as the fall in her Life Points resolves, Aki flips her Trap card. "I activate my facedown Trap, Doppelgänger! Whenever I take damage due to a card's effect, my opponent will take the same damage!"

deLancebeaux's life points drop by 400, but he's still in the lead with 3600 Life Points while Aki has 2200. I sense something churning in the air, and the persisting calm on Aki's face makes me think that deLancebeaux won't have his lead for long.

She's likely to hurt him. I wonder what the spectators will think of that. Maybe they'll prove Divine right about common people after all, even though Aki may completely warrant their reactions.

"I set two facedown cards and cease my turn!"

Aki draws. "I activate the Spell card, Mark of the Rose, and equip it to your Masked Knight! With this card, I'm allowed to take control of a monster of yours until my End Phase—control will continue to switch until the monster or the Equip Spell is destroyed!"

The Knight rushes over to Aki's end of the field and bows before her. This sounds like the end of this duel to me.

"Now, Masked Knight, attack deLancebeaux directly!"

His monster rushes toward him, swinging its short sword, and deLancebeaux falls to his knees; the rumbling under my feet grows stronger. I glance around the waiting area, but it's like no one else can feel the chaos under us.

"Now I equip Masked Knight with Vengeful Servant! This card allows me to deal damage equal to your monster's ATK to you every time control switches back! I think now is an appropriate time to end my turn!"

As per the cards Aki has activated, deLancebeaux's armor shudders and creaks from the damage he takes due to Masked Knight's reentrance to his side of the field. Then he flips one of his facedowns. "I trigger one of my facedown cards, Level Change! This card will allow me to trade my Masked Knight LV3 for my Masked Knight LV5!"

Mark of the Rose and Vengeful Servant are destroyed with the banishing of deLancebeaux's monster, but Aki now has the upper hand like I suspected she would. Masked Knight LV5's ATK is halved when it comes to the field, bringing another Rose Token onto Aki's field with it.

deLancebeaux draws and stares at his hand for a while before making a move. "I will begin by activating Masked Knight LV5's special ability, allowing me to banish it to the Grave in order to bring Masked Knight LV7 to the field!"

The monster stretches and grows, producing thicker-looking armor and a longer sword. Aki still isn't bothered. "Due to the effect of Black Garden, your Masked Knight's ATK is halved and I get to bring another Rose Token to the field!"

"No matter! I equip Masked Knight LV7 with Glory Shield and send it to vanquish one of your Rose Tokens!"

Tokens like those can't be destroyed by battle, but Aki does take the difference in damage. Masked Knight LV7 swings its sword and her Life Points drop to 1550.

"Due to Glory Shield's special effect, I am allowed to destroy one Spell or Trap card on the field! I will destroy your Doppelgänger!" The card breaks into shards of light, and deLancebeaux points across the black woods. "Now, because of Masked Knight LV7's special ability, I can deal you 1500 points of damage!"

Aki's Life Points decline to 50, and deLancebeaux sets a card facedown before ending his turn. I can only expect that Aki has something in place to pivot this situation to her advantage. Even with such little Life, she's not going to give up easily.

Aki draws. "I activate the effect of Black Garden! I can destroy it and every Plant-type monster on my field in order to summon a monster with an ATK of the combined points of every monster I discarded—return to me, Black Rose Dragon!"

Back like it never even left—but there's that electricity in my fingertips again.

"Now, I activate Black Rose Dragon's secondary effect! By removing a Plant-type monster in my Graveyard, I can make the ATK of your Masked Knight 0 until the End Phase!"

There it is, she's won.

"I remove Wall of Ivy! Now, Black Rose Dragon, lay waste to the field!"

And it does. Static courses up my fingers toward my shoulders as the camera captures several angles of wind whipping through the stadium, and one of deLancebeaux on the ground, his face bloodied.

The MC attempts to announce that Aki has won, but is drowned out by the screams from within the crowd. It's the first time I tune into the background noise of the broadcast, and it sounds… _horrifying_.

I was right about Aki disregarding the health of her opponent, but I never could have guessed at the crowd's reaction. If I didn't know any better, I would think that people in the very _stands_ were mortally injured. The screaming and shouting and the chaos of the MC trying to create order is so disorienting that I have to turn around, hands clamped over my ears, until I'm far enough away from that section of the waiting room that I can't even hear the remaining attendees watching the duel whispering about my friend—about the _witch_.

I'm so disoriented that I almost forget that the duel is over. I see people around me starting to move, some looking like they're about to leave, and I panic. I remember what Seria said, that Divine was bound to bring Aki back out of the stadium. They're probably going to exit here, through the contender's area. If I don't leave right now, at least for a head start, Divine will see me.

Everything in me seizes up when a hand clamps around my shoulder. I think it's Divine. He's caught me—I can already feel the electricity racing down my spine. Five or ten minutes this time? Maybe fifteen for interrupting something important?

I wait for his voice: the stern, parental sort of tone he takes in the eye of the public. But it doesn't come.

"I'm not going to hurt you." It's a different voice. I know I've never heard it, but it sounds almost out of a dream I had in those muddy former years I can never remember. "You don't have to be afraid."

I swallow. The person nudges me around, toward them. I'm face to face with one of the competitors, I know it.

I swear I caught a glimpse of this face on the screen. Up close he's tan and dark-haired, and one of those strange yellow marks I've seen on people in Daimon tears down his cheek. Blue eyes—not like mine, so grey-blue they're almost colorless—like open sky.

"Who are you?" I say, trying to feign confidence, but my voice comes out like a whisper.

His hand retracts from my shoulder. "You don't know me."

"I-I…"

"I'm sorry, you… you just looked like somebody I knew." He shakes his head and begins away.

I… I look like someone he knows? _Knew_? Did I? Who is this person? Panic rises up in my stomach.

"M-My name is C," I blurt.

" _C_?" He asks incredulously, turning back to me.

"It's—it's short for… for Cipher," I stutter.

"Interesting name."

"It's not… mine," I whisper. "I just. Divine. He gave it to me."

"Who's Divine?"

"My— _caretaker_ ," is what tumbles out of me. "He… found me. I guess. I don't know my real name. Just the one I have."

"You don't know your name?" He pivots back toward me. "Why 'Cipher'? Why not pick something else? 'S'cuse me for saying so, but why not pick something more regular?"

"I-I don't know." His eyes are fixed on my face now, maybe trying to look for more familiarity. I'm digging down into myself as deeply as I can go to try to recall a face like his. "Do you know me?"

He's still looking at me, like he's trying to put pieces together, and suddenly I hear, " _Cipher_ ," across the room like the name was just shot out of a cannon.

It's the voice I know—the one I was expecting. I whirl toward Divine, toward the storm I never knew could keep even a _little_ bit quiet, and his entourage of Movement clerics. Aki is beside him, her duel disk beneath one of her arms, and she pins her eyes on me with a look that terrifies me. It's as cold and wordless as the proverbial mask she wore during the duel.

I'm looking at two Divines right now. Where did that duel put _my_ Aki?

" _C_ ," the competitor murmurs. "What's going on." Not a question, but a demand.

"I'm too late for explanations," I choke out. It'll be so much worse if I run.

A couple of the clerics surge forward, one to grab my arm, one to bar the other competitor, the one who recognized me, from touching me. The cleric with a hand on me pulls me into their entourage, beside Aki, who keeps her unfeeling eyes straight ahead.

"Cipher," Divine says, in that deathly calm voice, "I would like you to guess how much trouble you're in today."

I swallow. "...I-I'd rather not."

"You're going to guess for me. And you have the ride back home to figure it out and give me a valid answer."

As the circle of clerics usher us out, a hand suddenly closes around mine.

 _Aki._ One squeeze, her fingers around my palm, despite that expression spelling murder on her cold, beautiful face. As if to say, _I'm here_.

Wait, so, what is that, then? Another mask? Is she still the Aki I know, just in different packaging for a few more seconds? Or… _what_?

I'm grateful for that little, tiny glimmer of hope, but… I'm in _so_ much trouble. And I feel the person who somehow recognized me, who somehow knows something about who I am—who I _was_ —watching me the whole way out.


	6. Call From Underwater

I don't know how long I've been in bed, but I keep drifting in and out of sleep. I just know that I'm drenched in sweat and exhausted.

When I finally wake up, I feel awful. But Seria is there, and she's dotting my forehead with a cloth.

"Morning," she says. "How do you feel?"

My mouth is dry—but I'm trying to ask what day it is. Last time, Aki said I slept through a whole day, almost two. I can't miss the rest of the tournament, not with what just happened to me… There's only one thing on my mind right now. It's been there, slipping in and out of my nightmares, haunting me for however long I've been out.

"I've got water, it's all right." Seria coaxes me up into a seated position and puts a drinking glass in my shaky hands.

After taking a second to down the entire glass and catch my breath, I wheeze, "What day is it?"

"It's only Tuesday, relax. Divine and Aki just left, maybe ten minutes ago. It's early, you should go back to sleep after you drink a little more."

"I can't," I croak. "I have to go back there."

"C, you're not going to bounce back in a few hours—"

"Someone there knew me, Seria!" I manage. She goes silent. "S-Somebody… some boy, some competitor there, he _recognized_ me!"

"Somebody recognized you," Seria says, like she's testing the words. "How can that be?"

"I-I don't know, but I… I have to go see him. I have to see what he knows. I-I didn't think I had anywhere I came from, but this could be… somebody knows about me! Somebody knows where I'm _from_!"

Seria sits in silence, the glass in one hand, the rag in the other. Thinking. Saying nothing.

"I wish I had more time to plan this out," she mutters to herself. "Okay. I'm going to fill this up again, and you're going to take as much time as you need to stand up, move around, try to get all of your muscles working. Get dressed in whatever you have. I'll be right back."

She refills the glass with the tap and sets it on my desk, amidst all of the clutter, then rushes out of my room so quickly that it takes me a second to realize that she's gone. I don't know where she went, or what she's planning on doing… but I'm gonna listen.

The pain is dull in some places, excruciating in others, and it takes me what feels like forever to roll out of bed. I go in little parts, taking breaks between movements, first wrenching myself toward the floor, then putting my feet down, and urging myself into putting my weight on the floor. I take a couple extra minutes to shuffle to my desk to slam the water Seria left for me.

Divine, I think (as usual), burned the clothes I was wearing the last time I went outside. I have only one more set of street clothes in a case under my bed. It's surrounded by books to keep it hidden: dark pants, a violet and magenta top that bares my arms and a bit of my belly, and tall black boots. I'm struggling to pull my boots up when Seria reenters the room.

"Let me help you," she sighs. She kneels down in front of me to yank the boots up my calves, then ties them off for me. "How is it moving?"

"I'm—in a lot of pain," I confess.

"I'll see what I can do about that, too. Come on, this way. Do you have a coat?"

I scramble to pick up my dark denim jacket out of the case, and Seria helps me pull it up over my aching shoulders. Then the two of us ramble out of the room, me half-stumbling behind her as she starts a brisk walk toward the elevator.

"W-What are we doing?" I manage as the elevator door slides open.

"We're going down to the mess first," Seria states. She punches the button to the second floor, and the elevator jerks downward, rattling my bones. "You're going to eat something and drink a little more, and you're going to take some aspirin to start. After that, you and I are going outside and Kawasaki is going to take you to the Memorial Circuit."

"W-What?" I blurt. "Who's Kawasaki?"

"A friend of mine. He works outside, regulating the riding track and organizing any type of Movement authorized transportation. He put together the truck and the team that took Aki and Divine to the Circuit today."

The elevator opens on the second floor, and I limp after Seria toward the mess hall, at the south end of the floor.

"You're just… letting me leave?" I ask hoarsely.

"I would have let you leave ages ago, but you've had nowhere to go. I like to assume that you've had the same sort of thoughts." She throws the door open to the mess and I follow her in. "Divine told me that he _found_ you. That he didn't know where you came from, and that you'd been given no name, so he named you…"

"I still don't know about the name part," I say. "It wasn't a long conversation. He just… he said he recognized me. Divine saw me after that, and…"

"You don't have to go on." Seria shakes her head as she rifles through a cabinet. "I should have known. If you have a place… a _family_ —"

"You're not suggesting I _leave_ Arcadia?" I remark.

"Don't you want to?"

I feel like I'm going to swallow my tongue. "I… If Divine finds out—"

"This isn't about Divine, C, this is about _you_. If it turns out this person knows you and where you're from, are you going to go find out where that is?"

I don't say anything.

"I would." She finds what she's looking for, a little bottle of pills, and slams the cabinet shut. "I'd do it in a heartbeat."

"W-What?"

Seria wrenches open the fridge and rifles through one of the shelves. "Divine has conditioned you to be too frightened of consequences. The probability of you getting caught going outside is lower than the probability of you getting caught leaving, but you can't stay here. You need to admit to yourself that Divine _abuses_ you. This is the universe dropping a chance for you to leave in your lap, and I think you should take it."

"I-I…"

"Sit. Eat this." Seria wrenches out a chair at the table in the middle of the hall and sets down a banana, a cup of yogurt, and a tupperware of rice. "I'll get you utensils."

"Why are you… are _you_ going to leave?" I blurt.

"I told you, I'm not going to leave until there's no one else Divine can destroy."

"But _why_ —"

"You need to listen to me." She sets down a spoon and a pair of chopsticks. "I grew up with Divine, C. I saw him become the man he is now. Whatever he wants from you… he hasn't gotten it yet. He's going to keep treating you this way until he gets what he wants, whatever that may be. It's not going to stop, it's going to get worse. _You're_ going to get worse unless you get out. Scope out this situation and weigh if it's safe, if this person really does know you."

"W-What if he doesn't?" I squeak, peeling the banana out of unease, eagerness to please, rather than hunger.

"Wait for the next opportunity. And the next, and the next, and the next, until you can finally go somewhere that'll help you instead of hurt you." She beelines for the fridge again to fill another drinking glass with water.

"What about you?"

"What _about_ me?"

"He'll… will he get angry with you?"

"Probably. But that's a small price to pay. I'm the only one who can keep him in check without ending up dead."

 _Without ending up dead_. The suggestion sends shivers down my spine.

"Eat." She fiddles with the pill bottle until she gets it open, and empties two little white pills onto the table. "When you're done, take those."

It's the first uneasy silence I have with Seria, as I try to down as much food as I can without feeling like I'm going to vomit. When I take the pills, she pulls up a chair next to me and sets down a box of tissues between us.

"Hold still."

"What are you doing?"

"Just trust me." She lays a hand on my shoulder, and a sharp heat runs up through my neck into my skull, then bounces down into my spine.

My knees hit the table as I jerk upward, but Seria puts her other hand on my arm to keep me from moving. "Still, C."

Suddenly it's… this beautiful warmth. It spreads outward from my center, down toward the tips of my toes. When it's gone, Seria pulls a wad of tissues from the box and squishes them against her face—against her bleeding nose.

"Are you okay?" I exclaim, jumping up out of my chair.

"Fine," Seria says, sounding tired. "I'm fine."

"Wait." I roll my shoulders up and back. No pain. "What… What did you do to me?"

"It's one of my subclasses," she states. "It's called Naturalism. It's biologically-based telekinesis."

"What does that… even…"

"It accelerates cell growth. I can heal." She checks for the amount of blood in her tissues, then adds a few more to the wad in her hand. "It's a rare class, and it takes a physical toll on me, but it works."

"Why didn't you tell me about this _before_?"

"I only use it in emergencies. I would use it on you every time this happens to you, if I could, but I have to take a recovery time, too. And Divine would be suspicious of me using it on you, if you bounced back too quickly. Knowing him, he'd make your punishments worse. It's the worse injuries I can't mitigate."

"Thank you," I manage.

"You're welcome. If you feel a little nauseous or drowsy, it's normal. It's your body adjusting to the accelerated growth. Having eaten beforehand should help you, though, it'll feed your bodily functions." She stands and wrangles the box of tissues underneath her arm, a wad of bloody tissue still clutched against her nose. "Now, come on, no more wasting time."

We take the stairs down to the ground floor. Today, I've had a reason to be down here on the ground level three entire times. That I _remember_ , at least.

I follow Seria around to the eastern side of the building—I always go out the western side—until we reach this big open area that's gated all around. We keep walking, and I'm feverishly craning my neck up to catch the sunlight on my face, until we reach this flat-roofed house-looking building.

There's someone already there waiting for us—a man in Arcadia robes, definitely older than me, but probably younger than Seria. Brown eyes, tousled teal hair, angular jaw.

"You must be C," he remarks, his voice a lazy sort of drawl. "Good to finally meet you!"

"Are you… You're Kawasaki? Right?"

"That'd be me," he states, sticking out his hand for me to shake. "A little sheepish, isn't she, Ser?"

"Try not to tease her too much, _please_ ," Seria exhales, sounding muffled behind all of her tissues.

"Nosebleed, champ?" Kawasaki asks.

"Don't worry about it. Thank you for helping with this."

"Hey, no problem. Anything to ruffle a few of Divine's feathers."

Seria puts her free hand on my shoulder. "Be careful, C. Get back before Aki's duel is over. It'll keep you from having to repeat yesterday over."

"Thank you," I murmur.

"Good luck, both of you." Seria turns and beelines back for the front door of the Movement. I can't fathom how so much power can live in such a little woman.

"All right, C, let's get going." Kawasaki shoves open the door to the building and goes inside. "Seria caught me up on the need-to-know. I'm gonna get you in and out to do what you've gotta do as quickly and easily as possible."

"A-Are you… like Seria? When it comes to Divine?"

"Every crusader has to have a following of their own, don't they?" Kawasaki throws something toward me, and I fumble with it to keep it from crashing to the ground: a helmet.

"What's that mean?" I ask.

"Let's just say Seria isn't the only one who doesn't like how this ship runs." There's a frown in his voice. "Pull that door open a little wider, would you?"

I clutch the helmet in one hand and wrench the door open with the other. Kawasaki suddenly comes rolling out of the shed with a sleek black duel runner that glistens dully in the early afternoon sun.

"Oh," I breathe. "You're… We're going on that?"

"Yep. And the best part is that _you're_ driving!"

" _What_?" I exclaim. " _No_ , I don't know how—"

"Don't be modest, Seria said you built yourself a simulator."

"Y-Yeah, without a physical component! It was like a _video game_ , it wasn't—"

"Seria asked me to teach you to ride, kid," he interrupts. "And you've got a _really_ limited time frame to learn how. You're sitting in the front seat, and I'll talk you through everything. Deal?"

"I-I don't…"

"Come on, no fear. I'll keep you from falling, too." He rolls it the rest of the way out of the garage and slips a helmet on. "Helmet on, driver's seat. We're wasting time!"

I swallow a lump that's formed in my throat and yank the helmet on. Kawasaki guides me into the driver's seat, where there's a screen and a place for a wrist dealer to disengage a duel disk, but it's empty. I recognize the patterns and the divots where things should go from all of my books and the program I ran in my simulator.

"Keep your hands here at all times," he says, directing me toward the handles on both sides of the runner. One of them is disengaged upward to let us climb onto the seat. "You only have to let go of one if you're turbo dueling, and it has an autopilot function for that, anyways. That's a future sort-of lesson that I'm not going to have time to go over with you."

I close my hand around the handle to my left; my fingers sink into the grip.

"The accelerator is a dual-action system," he explains. "That handle turns. The thing won't move unless you turn it clockwise while tapping the ignition—" he taps the brake-looking pedal by my foot, "— _here_. The further clockwise, the faster you go. Likewise, turning the handle counterclockwise while hitting the brake there will slow you down. That button there is to engage duel protocol, _don't_ touch it." Kawasaki climbs onto the runner behind me and disengages the other handle to lock in to our right. "That button next to it turns it on, it's keyed to thumbprint recognition. _My_ thumbprint, right now."

He reaches around me to click the button, and there's a clear little 'ding' noise as it recognizes his thumbprint before the runner roars to life underneath me. My heart feels like it's leapt up into my throat.

"You know the rules of the road?" He asks over the rumble of the duel runner.

"M-More or less!" I stutter, hoping road manuals count as 'rules of the road.' I've read up on some traffic laws and rules, but I'm not clear on them in execution.

"Great! Don't take your eyes off the road, maintain following distance, pay attention when you're changing lanes, all that good stuff!" He puts his hands on my shoulders. "And, rookie mistake, you have to turn with your _whole_ body. I'll help you with that part, and I'll tell you the way to go. Okay?"

"O-Okay!"

"All right! Time to go!"

I'm still wondering how safe this is, but there really isn't any going back now. I tense my entire body and rotate the left handle; when I tap the foot brake, the duel runner jumps forward, and I feel like I might spontaneously combust.

"It's okay, it's okay!" Kawasaki shouts. "Lean left!"

I do what he says, only because I know I can't get through this on my own. He leans with me, and the nose of the duel runner turns outward off of the dirt path. We bounce off of the path and into the pavement of the parking lot; Kawasaki urges me forward, toward the street. I bite into the inside of my cheek to keep from screaming.

The street, thankfully, is mostly clear. I'm wracking my brain for every piece of traffic-related information I programmed into my simulator. Kawasaki shouts above the wind which way we should go, which way I should lean, and I'm too scared to do anything else but listen. At times, I lean too far, and I can feel something like wind resistance keeping us from crashing to the pavement. I dodge a few cars, a pedestrian or two a couple of times, and at some point I think I start laughing—from fear or from joy, I don't know. But when we've been on the road long enough that I'm beginning to get a feel for the leaning and the speeding up and slowing down, I'm thinking that this just might be fun.

 _Really_ different from my simulator, that's for sure. I don't think I could program something like this if I tried.

When the Memorial Circuit looms up over us, Kawasaki shouts at me to stop, and I try to gradually ease into it, but we almost crash into a barricade along the contender side of the stadium.

"Well," Kawasaki breathes, sounding winded, "that wasn't so hard, was it?"

"W-We didn't crash!" I say. Even my voice sounds exhilarated; my heart is pounding, and I feel like I've been for a mile-long run. "I-I have a question!"

"Hm?"

"Y-You're a Waster, aren't you?"

He grins.

"That's why we didn't crash," I pant. "You Wasted us that _whole_ way? I can't Waste for more than a couple of minutes straight!"

"Telekinesis is a wonderful gift, kid, and when you're in my line of work, it's best used in protecting your vehicles from scrapes and bruises. You didn't think I had enough of a death wish to let you drive all the way here _completely_ unsupervised, did you?"

"I'd hoped not!"

He laughs. "Go get your thing done, kid. You're driving us back, and then tomorrow morning, when Divine's far enough away so he can't see me flip him off, you're driving the track back at the Movement _without_ my help!"

I swallow. "Okay!"

He disengages the right handle and I jump off of the back of the runner.

"Helmet, helmet," he reminds me; I toss it to him and take off toward the contenders entrance in a half-jog, rolling my jacket sleeves up as I go to let the wind reach my sweat-kissed skin.

Today, there aren't any Security agents outside, but I can also hear deafening noise, _screaming_ , almost, cresting up over the stadium wall. There must be a duel in progress. I hope it's not Aki's.

I go in the same door, following the same path as I did before, toward that waiting room. I check around every corner I reach now, though—Divine _can't_ see me today. Not before I get my answers.

I'm thinking of what I recall of that boy's face. The blue eyes, the yellow mark. He shouldn't be that hard to find. _Hopefully_.

Once I reach the common area, I look around for him. Or someone who looks like him, I guess. I'm wishing I took a longer look at his face.

There's a tall, sort of gangly-looking man in the waiting area watching one of the screens. He's in a nice suit, and he's wearing glasses.

"Hey," I say. "Excuse me. Has Aki Izayoi dueled yet?"

He glances at me out of the corner of his eye. "A fan of the Black Rose Witch, hm?"

"O-Oh," I say. "Sure. I guess. I like anyone who duels well."

He looks over me. Doesn't seem impressed. "No. Not yet. The stadium's on temporary lockdown. The last match ended with one of the contenders attacking the presidential box."

Even though I don't entirely know what it means, I say, "Sounds serious."

"Quite. Your Witch duels next." I flinch at the word 'witch.' "I won't be going easy on her."

"... _you're_ dueling her?"

"It'll be an interesting match. Sure to be enjoyable."

"Right," I say. "...thanks." I turn tail and split down a hallway. Whoever that was… he was a creep. I hope Aki fares well against him.

The hallway is lined with doors, all unmarked, all the same. Where the hell am I supposed to start? What if Divine is behind one of these?

The only thing I can think of doing is stretching my mind out and searching for psychics—trying every door that I know for sure has a common person behind it, whether or not it's locked. For a while, I get nothing. But there are only a few unlocked doors, and even less with people behind them. It gives me hope that this'll be easier than I think.

At the very end of one hall, I open one door to find a hall full of bigger doors; almost double-door sized. There's one that I can sense has a person in it.

And, when I go to crack it open, there he is.


	7. All Forgotten

He's kneeling next to a sleek red duel runner on one side of the room. He looks up when I open the door, and when he registers me standing there, he brings himself to his feet. "You're back."

I try not to yank the door out of my way too quickly. "I-I came looking for you."

"Well, I feel popular today." He sets down a socket wrench. " _C_ , right?"

"Yes." I swallow and shut the door behind me. "That's me."

"I wasn't sure I'd see you again. I'd like to assume you're with those Arcadia people who dragged you out?"

"Yeah. More or less." I inch down the stairs, my heart pounding. This person knows me. This person knows me. "I mean… I live there. In Arcadia."

"You _just_ live there?" He frowns. "Who was he?"

"W-Who?"

"The head guy. Tall, reddish hair?" His expression darkens a little. "Talked at you like you belonged to him? If you don't mind me asking, who was he?"

"That was…" I swallow. "Divine."

"Your _caretaker_. Right?"

"Yeah."

"I assume that means you have no family."

"...no. No memory of one, at least."

"No memory?" He looks over me; not like the man in the waiting room, who looked over me like he was surveying an opponent. Or prey. This person is taking me in with curiosity in his eyes. So I take the time to do the same.

He's something like a head taller than me, and he's lost his jacket to work on his duel runner, probably; his build says that he's probably done quite a lot of heavy lifting. He's got dark, wild hair streaked with bolts of blonde, and the skin tone of someone who was made for sunshine.

He looks like the kind of person that's been in a few fights. Serious face, deep-set eyes. More of a watcher, it seems, than a talker.

"You… you know me," I say at last.

"...I _think_ I do," he replies. "I need a few more context clues first. But I _think_ you and I know each other."

I swallow. "Okay."

His eyes look like they've caught on my arm, and they stay there as he sinks down into a chair with a jacket hanging over it—presumably, his own. What is he looking at? Maybe one of my tattoos?

"What did he do to you?"

The question makes me flinch.

"C," he says, his voice like quiet thunder, "what did he do to you?"

Not just a person who's _been_ in a few fights. A person who starts them _and_ finishes them.

"I saw you _physically_ shrink. People don't just do that unless—"

"Forget it," I blurt. "Just don't worry about it. It's not your problem."

"It _is_ my problem."

"I… we… don't even know if we know each other yet."

"That's why you're here and probably risking your safety again, isn't it?" He remarks. "Let's figure it out. You said you can't remember your name?"

I shake my head.

"Is there anything else you remember?"

"Well, I. Sort of," I confess. "I don't have most of my memory intact. I don't know why. It's… it's mostly just nothing."

" _Nothing_?"

"I know some of it comes back to me in dreams, but it never stays. And I can never separate the dreams from the memories."

He leans forward in his seat and wrings his hands; it makes the muscles in his arms protrude. "Anything you've retained at all?"

"I—don't know."

"You _don't know_?" He presses.

"I-I've been with Arcadia for everything I can remember. It gets blurry again if I try to remember towards that beginning, but I know it's somewhere before…" when did Aki arrive again? "Two years ago, I think. No, three. Wait…"

"However long it was," he interrupts, "it was more than two years?"

"Yes. Are you ever going to tell me your name?"

"It's Yusei," he says, but it's more of an afterthought; he sounds disgruntled. "You remember nothing, you can't separate time enough to tell me when your memory starts up… and you've got no name."

"Well, when you put it like that—"

"It sounds like something the Bureau should take care of," he mutters. "But here's _my_ side of this. Eight or so years ago, a girl I grew up with disappeared from our house on the edge of the livable part of Satellite."

"What's… I'm sorry if this is a stupid question. What's a Satellite?"

His eyebrows furrow together. "You've _never_ heard of Satellite?"

"No," I admit.

"Interesting." He glances up, and his eyes search my face. "Satellite's—the separate sector of Neo Domino, it's an island a ways west across the sound. It used to be part of the city, but there was an earthquake and it separated… there's a lot more to it than that, but, the basics are that I'm from there, and you might be, too."

"Okay," I say.

"I'm not an expert on faces, especially when some years have gone by, or—or detective work, or anything like that, but you look like you could be her. What actually got me was the fact that you look like her brother now."

"I… What?"

" _Brother,_ she has a twin brother. He's still in Satellite. You've got the same hair, the same eyes, the same nose… even that same freckle." he points to me. "I don't know where she went, or if you're her… but it seems oddly convenient that all of your memories are gone and you can't do so much as remember your own name."

"That's not my fault," I retort.

"I know it isn't. I'm just saying it could mean something."

"If the person you're talking about is me," I say, "how did I get from Satellite to here without anyone noticing?"

"I would ask your, again, convenient lack of memories. Or your 'caretaker'."

I swallow.

"Just think about it for a second; does it make sense to you?" He leans forward a little. "You're a girl that visually fits the bill of the one who went missing eight years ago. She should be seventeen or eighteen right now, if she's still alive."

"I… I turned eighteen this year," I murmur. "I'm pretty sure of it, at least…"

"Right, there you go. You can't remember your name, so you've got a new one. Why not give a new name to someone so that nobody can come looking for them? And your caretaker seemed pretty upset when he saw you here."

"Because he doesn't—he doesn't want me… going outside," I say softly.

"To keep you _safe_?" He asks. "Is that what he tells you? Or is it in case you run into someone like me? Someone who recognizes you?"

"Okay, wait, wait," I blurt. "Even if all of this _is_ true… even if I'm some… some missing person, what does that even do for me? Do I get sent back to Satellite, or—or what? Do I get to go looking for my real family, wherever they are?"

"I don't know what it means," he confesses, "besides the fact that you get to kiss your caretaker and the Arcadia Movement goodbye."

That makes everything in my mind go silent. All I can hear is Seria, saying _you can't stay here_.

"Like… _goodbye_ , goodbye?" I whisper.

" _Like_ , if you don't want to, you never have to see any of those people again for the rest of your life," he responds.

"Oh," I breathe.

He stands, brushing his hands off on his jeans, and crosses toward me. He's close enough to touch, and he extends his hand. "May I?"

"W-What?"

"Your hand, C?"

I offer him my hand tentatively, slowly, not sure why he wants it. Not sure what he saw or what he wants to see.

His fingers around mine are warm and rough—it's all peeling, calloused skin like he's spent a lifetime working himself to the bone. He looks at my tattoo for a moment, the one of the compass needle on my forearm, then turns my arm over. I yank away the second he glimpses the blood bruises from my punishment yesterday.

"I'm sorry," he says softly.

I don't know if he's apologizing for asking to look, or if he's apologizing for the marks on my skin.

"Where do I go," I choke out, "if I leave Arcadia?"

"Home," he responds. "I'll take you home."

That word makes breath stick in my throat.

"Take me anywhere," I blurt. "Anywhere but here. If I have a family, if I have… an identity, I need to know what it is."

"I'll take you there to meet your brother—my… _our_ friends. The only problem is that we're going to have to take a detour."

"Detour?" I ask.

"I'm knee deep in _this_ mess," he answers, gesturing around himself. "I came to this city to settle a score with an old friend of mine—ah, _ours_." Yusei runs a hand through his hair. "I got myself into some trouble, and I got my friends back home into some trouble… now I'm stuck here, competing in Goodwin's tournament."

"That's all right," I say. "It's just this week, isn't it?"

"Until tomorrow, at the longest. I'm in the semifinal, after what happened this morning. Afterwards, we'll see about getting you back," he replies. "I don't know how, or how long it'll take, but—"

"That's okay," I say quickly. "I don't care how long it takes. You've already done enough for me by offering, anyways. I'm in your debt."

"You don't owe me anything for trying to be decent," he replies. "If I used to know you, then we used to be friends. We still are."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome. Maybe in the next week we can exchange stories—you can tell me how you think you ended up in Arcadia with your caretaker and the girl who's got the entire stadium scared shitless." He uses air quotes to emphasize 'caretaker.'

"Aki?" I ask.

"Arcadia, I assume, is for psychic duelists," Yusei remarks. "Seems Aki can't control her powers."

"Not possible, " I scoff. "She could be one of the most well-trained psychics in the whole Movement."

"Well, she's dealing real damage to her opponents, and she's throwing debris into the stands."

"That's just… the damage is part of her class, but the debris… it's not that she can't control her powers. She's doing extra damage on purpose. Just because she can."

"...interesting. And, if you'll excuse my lack of knowledge on the subject, what do you mean by 'class'?" Yusei questions.

"Psychic class," I say. "Aki's a trioclass—she's a Specifier, a Twister, and a Physicalizer."

"There are—there are _classes_ of psychics?"

"Yeah, they're assigned when you join the Movement and figure out your specialization."

"Are _you_ a psychic?"

I swallow—Seria's words ring around in my mind like loud warning bells. _Like the knowledge that you're a psychic suddenly makes horns sprout from your head_. It must be obvious now, but will his attitude change if I actually admit it?

"C," he says gently, "you can be honest."

"... _yeah_ ," I force myself to say.

"Okay. That's _fine_."

"You're… you don't have a problem with that?"

"Should I?"

I wring my hands together. "I just thought… people were afraid of psychics."

"They are, if they're like Aki, hurting people without rhyme or reason. But I'm not afraid of Aki, either. Her actions seem more like a cry for help to me than an actual effort to hurt other people."

I've never heard that before. But somehow, I'm relieved. "...I'm not really like Aki—in power concentration, at least. I'm a duoclass, a Specifier and a Waster. But that's usually what everyone is."

"What do those mean?"

"Specifiers can tell psychics from common people, and Wasters have telekinetic power."

"Interesting," he says. "What are those other two Aki are?"

"Twisters can mess with elements of their surroundings. Change their shape, their essence, and stuff. Physicalizers are a class specific to dueling and can physicalize monsters and duel damage…"

"Are there more classes?"

"Oh, yeah. All kinds."

"Got it." He crosses his arms. "Your brother's a psychic, too. You'll have to classify him. I'm calling him your brother now because I'm getting more and more convinced that you're… well, _you_."

The brother I have is a psychic, too? My stomach turns over again and again. There's so much about myself that must exist in Satellite.

"You walked out with Aki yesterday," he says. "Are the two of you close?"

"You could say that," I tell him. "I… I care about her a lot. But I'm not sure she cares about me the same amount."

"What do you mean?" He asks softly.

"She… well, she knows what I… what I go through in the Movement. But she's a lot like Divine—cruel, sadistic, even, if you warrant that side of her. She's as trapped as I am, though, so I can't exactly blame her."

"If you don't look too hard, it seems to me like she likes perfectly well where she is," Yusei responds.

"...she thinks Divine is some _savior_ , which I guess is why she lets him do what he likes with her. She wouldn't leave if she was given the opportunity."

"He treats her better than he treats you." Yusei looks over me. "Why?"

"I don't know," I say hollowly. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Okay. I'm sorry I asked about it." He crosses the room, toward the shiny red duel runner on the other side of the garage. "Do you want to watch her duel?"

"Okay," I breathe. "Just a little, though, before I have to leave. I need to beat her and Divine back to the Movement."

"Fair enough."

"That's your duel runner, right?"

"Yep. Ever seen one before?"

"I…I'm trying to learn to ride one," I say. "And I'm… well, I'm familiar with the way they work."

"Really?" Now he sounds interested. "How's that? If you aren't allowed outside?"

"Seria, my—my teacher, she brings me all sorts of things to pick at and study. Stuff to take apart and put back together. Divine pays attention to Aki all the time, so Seria mostly takes care of me…"

"How much do you know?"

"Um, basics. Electrical wiring and stuff, how the engine works... they're pretty fascinating."

"I built this one myself," he says, patting the hood. "It took me two years to gather all of the materials."

"You… You _built_ it?"

"Yep."

"Wow," I breathe. "It's beautiful."

"...thank you." He sounds—bewildered, almost. Like it's a rarity for him to get compliments on this pretty thing he's built.

Everything in me seizes up as the door suddenly swings open behind me, and Yusei looks toward it. "Hey, Himuro."

"Hey," an unfamiliar male's voice says. I don't know who I was expecting. The unfamiliarity, though, is what makes me relax. "Who's this?"

I turn to meet this new person—he's tall, towering, almost, and built like a fighter. He's got marks like Yusei, yellow and set into his face, in long sort of slash-shapes down both of his cheeks, and his hair is styled in a circle of spikes.

"Himuro," he says gruffly. "You are?"

"I'm C," I tell him.

"C? That short for something?"

"Cipher."

"Huh. That's a weird kind of cool."

"...thank you?"

He makes this grunting noise as a reply—and glances over me. "Nice ink."

I'm tempted to roll my sleeves down and hide my tattoos, but the compliment makes a positive kind of heat fly into my cheeks. "Thanks."

"New friend, Yusei?" Himuro asks.

"Old one, actually."

That makes something else warm and pleasant burst up in me. The thought of _me_ having an _old friend_.

"Really? You've got old friends here besides Atlas?"

"I'm not sure C's here because she wants to be. She's been tied up with Arcadia."

"Whoa," Himuro marvels, looking at me again. "You're making friends with _psychics_?"

"Oh, gimme a break, Himuro," Yusei retorts. "They're all harmless."

"Okay, the _Black Rose Witch_ is _harmless_?"

"I-If you get on her good side," I attempt. Only a day has gone by, and Arcadia is suddenly a common term for both of these people.

"So _you're_ friends with her?" Himuro asks.

"I-I mean, yes, but—"

"Can _you_ blow cement out of the ground, too?"

"Himuro," Yusei warns.

"Not every psychic can physicalize duel damage," I say. "I can't do that."

"So what can you do?"

"Make things float. Mostly. But I can control that, Aki can't control her damage aspect. At least, during duels. Outside of them, though…"

" _Really_?"

"Danger comes from intent, Himuro," Yusei remarks. "If they have the intent to hurt others, they'll find a way to do it. According to C, the only reason Aki's causing all sorts of damage is because she wants to, which makes all sorts of sense."

Himuro looks like he wants to roll his eyes, but he concedes.

I was right about Yusei—he starts battles and finishes them. And he started and finished a battle I've been wondering about before I could even finish thinking about its implications.

"How far into the duel are they?" Yusei asks. "Did you just come from the stands?"

"Yeah, I took Rua and Ruka back to sit with Yanagi. I was afraid Rua would get all handsy with your duel runner."

"He means well." Yusei gets up. "Come watch with us, C."

I skitter after Himuro, toward Yusei as he kneels back down beside his duel runner.

"They're not too far in," Himuro says. "A turn had passed, I think, when I got out of earshot. The other guy, Kinomiya, is a creep, though."

I think of the man in the waiting area—his shiny glasses and his statements about Aki. " _Agreed_ ," I say as I sink down beside Yusei, huddling my knees in close to my chest. Himuro drags Yusei's chair in closer for him to use.

The screen on Yusei's runner flashes on, and he fiddles with a few of the buttons before I realize that he must be searching for the broadcast frequency, like on a radio. After a few seconds, sound blares outward from a picture of a half-destroyed battlefield, and Yusei tsks as he tries to readjust the volume.

"The hell is going on?" Himuro asks.

"Three cards on the field," Yusei remarks, squinting a little. "Aki has two, and Kinomiya has one facedown. A ploy."

"Aki has Black Garden and Violet Witch in play," I observe. "It's a base strategy, she's working up to Black Rose Dragon as usual."

"You know a lot about her deck, I take it?" Yusei asks.

"I've flipped through it with her a few times," I confess. "I know all her strategies."

"Ever duel her?"

"...no," I admit.

"Any reason for that?"

I cut my eyes up toward him. "Other than the fact that Divine doesn't let me touch cards anymore… I know she'd hurt me."

His eyebrows furrow together. "You said she chooses to hurt others. Aren't you her friend?"

"Dueling makes her different," I admit. "And I said the _collateral_ was her choice, not the duel damage."

Kinomiya takes the damage, 1100 points directly, then flips his facedown. "I activate my facedown: Crime and Punishment! This card allows me to destroy your Violet Witch and summon a LV 4 monster from my hand. Come, Agent of Hatred!"

"0 ATK and DEF points," Yusei mumbles. "Another ploy."

"Black Garden doesn't take its first effect, since half of zero is still zero, but it does give Aki a Rose Token," I say. "And Violet Witch has an aftereffect that she can activate from the Grave, anyways."

"She used it in the first duel yesterday," Himuro comments. "What's it do again?"

"Unless the monster you summon is via the effects of Black Garden, every monster you summon suffers an attack decrease by half—and the person who didn't summon a monster gets a LV 1 Rose Token with 800 ATK and DEF that can't be destroyed in battle. It's one of the quickest ways for Aki to Synchro, if she doesn't get all of the material she needs quick enough."

"Interesting," Yusei observes, but part of me isn't sure he's paying total attention. He's opened a panel on his duel runner and is fiddling with something with his socket wrench. I can't help but watch what he's doing—watch whatever he's trying to fix—while the duel buzzes in the background.

"I activate Violet Witch's effect from the Grave—I can add a Plant-type monster of my choice from my deck to my hand!"

She ends her Battle Phase, and I look up to the hazy picture of Kinomiya tapping his duel disk, where Agent of Hatred sits on the activation square. "Due to this card, I'm allowed to increase my Life Points by the damage I just took from Violet Witch's attack!"

"Back to square one," I say out loud. "Are they both at 4000?"

"Sounds like," Himuro answers.

I fix my eyes back at the screen, telling myself to focus on the duel instead of Yusei's duel runner, and wait to see what happens next.

"Fine by me!" Aki calls. "I summon Phoenixian Seed!"

Its ATK is halved because of Black Garden, and a Rose Token pops up on Kinomiya's side of the field.

"Now I activate Rose Flame! Whenever a Plant-type monster is Special Summoned to your field, you take 500 points in damage!"

Kinomiya takes a barrage of rose-colored flames to his stomach, and in their aftermath, even despite the grainy quality of the feed, I can see where his clothing is smoldering and beginning to rip. At this point, I have to look away.

"Are we re-enacting your first duel from eleven years ago, Izayoi?" Kinomiya calls.

"What's he talking about?" Yusei whispers.

 _First duel, eleven years ago_. What?

"What… does he know?" I murmur.

"The thrill of winning for the first time awakened the abilities sleeping within you," Kinomiya continues. "They destroy everything around you. They turn you into a living explosion. And now you simply can't stop."

I press my hands over my ears. Aki's reply is only slightly muffled. "My powers do more than damage the things around me—They damage people's wretched hearts, and they'll continue to destroy until I wish for them to stop!"

"Issues," Himuro comments. "She's got some _serious_ issues."

"Kinomiya seems to be making it worse," Yusei remarks.

"She's going to kill him," I say. "I-I don't know what he knows about her, but… oh, gods, she's going to _kill_ him."

"Do you mean that _literally_?" Yusei asks.

"I don't know."

"You act like a monster, Izayoi, and this world is for humans," Kinomiya tells her. "End your turn so that I can expose you at long last!"

" _I end my turn_."

"I activate Mind Monster and declare Black Rose Dragon!"

A lump of goo appears on Kinomiya's side of the field and molds itself into the dripping shape of Black Rose Dragon. The MC babbles his confusion in the background of amplified crowd noise.

Yusei, at this point, has drawn his attention back to the duel. I try to keep my eyes pinned on the exposed wiring in his duel runner.

"Upon the activation of this card, I can declare a Monster in your Extra Deck—if it happens to be there, you'll take damage equal to half the ATK of the selected Monster!"

Aki turns her cheek as gooey purple vines whip out toward her—her Life Points drop to 2800.

And the crowd… is _cheering_?

"They're _awful_ ," I breathe.

"Yeah," Yusei exhales. "They are. Aki really isn't making things better, though."

I don't say anything. But he's not wrong.

Kinomiya switches his Rose Token into Defense Position and ends his turn. Aki draws a card and stares at it for a while before making her move.

"What's wrong?" Kinomiya shouts. "Doesn't the Arcadia Movement have faith in your power?"

I wince.

"I've _only_ come here for those who believe in me," Aki tells him flatly. "By sending Phoenixian Seed to the Grave, I can summon Phoenixian Cluster Amaryllis!" Black Garden halves its attack and brings a Rose Token into Kinomiya's end of the field. The summon brings 500 more points of damage to Kinomiya due to Rose Flame, and Aki sends Phoenixian Cluster to attack his Rose Token.

"You don't look so good, C."

Yusei's voice drags me partially out of the mental hole I'm digging myself into.

"He knows things about her," I tell him. "Bringing up her past… even if it were _me_ doing it _gently_ , it would make her angry."

"Her past is her fatal flaw," he says, and it's not entirely a question.

" _Everyone's_ past is their fatal flaw," I reply, which makes him look away from me. "But I'm telling you… it won't be hers. It'll be _his_."

Kinomiya is on the ground now, having taken damage from the Token as well as Phoenixian Cluster's self-destruction effect. The MC narrates something half-garbled about Kinomiya looking 'injured'.

"D-Due to Agent of Hatred, I can regain some of my lost life!" Kinomiya pulls himself to his feet, his blazer spread across his shoulders in tatters.

"I set one card face down and end my turn," Aki declares. "Due to Phoenixian Cluster's special ability, it will now return to my field!" Again, the plant returns and a Rose Token appears on Kinomiya's field. He takes 500 more points in damage due to Rose Flame.

"He's getting cut up pretty badly," Himuro comments. "I'm surprised he's still standing."

I say nothing. Creep or not, I'm concerned for this person's life.

"I tribute my Rose Tokens to summon Mad Profiler!" Kinomiya tries. A Rose Token appears on Aki's end of the field. "Next, I activate its effect—by discarding one card in my hand, I can remove a card on the field from play. I'll choose Black Garden!"

The labyrinth of black and violet thorns encasing the field fades away, and suddenly Kinomiya's Mad Profiler registers in the corner of the feed as having 2600 ATK.

"By removing another card, I can reactivate Mad Profiler's effect and remove your Phoenixian Cluster Amaryllis from play!"

Aki's field is clear now, save for her Rose Tokens and her one facedown.

"Mad Profiler, attack the rightmost Token!"

The token remains standing, but Aki still takes damage; her Life Points plummet to 1000.

"Now, I equip Mad Profiler with Destruction Insurance! Due to this card, if you destroy Mad Profiler, you'll take damage equal to half of his ATK!"

"That's a win," Himuro says. "If she doesn't get rid of that card, she's done."

"I won't be dueling him tomorrow," Yusei says plainly. "I'll be dueling Aki."

"You sure about that?"

"Positive."

"I'll now equip Mad Profiler with Lightlow Protection! If Mad Profiler's ATK is changed by a card's effect, that card will automatically be destroyed! Now I end my turn!"

"If she summons Black Rose Dragon next turn, she can't use its effect without risking its destruction," Yusei points out.

"What about her facedown? It could be a hell of a game changer for all we know." Himuro argues.

"True."

"I summon Twilight Rose Knight in Attack Position!" Aki's voice calls.

Black Rose Dragon. That's… it won't be long until the duel ends.

"I should leave soon," I whisper.

"Now I tune Twilight Rose Knight with my two Rose Tokens in order to Synchro Summon Black Rose Dragon!"

Suddenly, something happens that I don't expect. Yusei's socket wrench clatters to the floor, and his skin explodes with red light. Himuro throws himself to his feet and retreats until his back's at the garage wall.

It startled me so much that I'm borderline hyperventilating, but I stay there on the ground next to him. He's stifling his breath, almost like he's in pain—I squint through the light until I can see a shape standing out against his forearm. I didn't see anything on his arm before now. It's a strange, almost tribal shape, but…

"That's… Aki has that," I whisper.

"You've… you've seen it, then?" He asks through gritted teeth.

"I've seen it, but I have no idea what it is. I've never asked her about it. It… it glows every now and then. Not like this, though." I have to take my eyes off of the blistering red light before it burns through my corneas. I didn't think anyone else had something like this besides Aki—but now I'm more curious as to what it is. "She hates it."

"I'll tell you what I know about it when we get the time." His eyes flicker to the duel runner screen, straining through the light. "You said… you had to go."

"Oh. Yeah. I should…"

"I'll see you tomorrow," Yusei tells me. "Right?"

"Yeah," I whisper.

"If you come back here, I'll be here, or I'll have a friend meet you and take you somewhere safe, where your caretaker can't touch you. Sound good?"

"Thank you."

"You're… welcome. Get back safely, C."

I take a last look around me, at the duel screen, and Himuro against the wall, at Yusei's face reflected in the red light, and heave myself onto my feet.

I take off running back down the hall, trying to get back outside as quickly as possible. That turn was likely going to end with Aki winning—which will make Divine begin to make arrangements to return to the Movement. He's probably out there, watching, where he can be closer to Aki than in the waiting room or the stands. He got her out quickly last time, and he's bound to get her out quickly again.

It feels like I make it outside, unscathed, by pure luck. Kawasaki is still lingering where I left him, and when I get close enough that he sees me, I find that he's bouncing the frequency of Aki's duel, too.

"Hey!" He calls, passing my helmet to me. I fumble to catch it and slide onto the runner in front of him. "You're just in time! Ready to go?"

"Y-Yeah, let's just… get this over with!"

Kawasaki's laughing as we skitter off into the street, and my heart feels like it's in my throat.

Tomorrow, I'm going _home_.


	8. Up In The Air

I'm wrapped up in my bed, pretending to take a nap, when Aki and Divine arrive back at the Movement.

I know I cut it closer than I would have liked—Kawasaki sent me running back inside to meet Seria while he stowed the duel runner, and I tore myself out of my street clothes and jumped into bed. Seria took my clothes somewhere, and we didn't have a lot of time to talk in between her looking for a place to stash them and me shutting my eyes and pretending to be immobile.

When Aki comes back, though… I _feel_ it.

The whole building feels like it's swaying, and I grip my bedframe like it can keep me stationary in this—this _earthquake_.

She's angry. I didn't see the end of that duel, but what I did see is enough explanation. Kinomiya somehow knew things about Aki and dragged them up for that duel. To make her angry on purpose, or to try and deter her from winning the duel… I don't know.

It's a few minutes before the shaking settles down, and I pry my hands off of the boards keeping the mattress in. It's a few minutes in my self-imposed silence, my eyes shut in my pseudo nap, before I hear a knock on the door: Seria.

She comes in bearing a tray of what smells like chicken soup.

"Feeling all right?" She asks. "Any nausea?"

"I-I think I was too anxious to feel anything," I admit as she sets the tray on my desk and sits on the edge of my bed. "I feel good, save for slightly seasick."

"Yes, it would seem like Aki isn't as _in control_ today as usual," Seria agrees. "She came in carrying her stabilizer."

" _Carrying_ it?" I marvel. "She never takes it off!"

"I don't know what happened. Just that, right now, she's not exactly under wraps. As a matter of fact, even Divine looked a little unstable when he got in. I'm glad you're back safe and sound."

"Me too," I say, tugging my quilt up to my chin. "Kawasaki made me drive there and back, and it was scary."

Seria laughs. "I was under the impression that you _wanted_ to learn to ride a duel runner?"

"Y-Yeah, but not like that! Not 'hey, C, we're going straight into traffic without any prior practice or warning, good luck! I'm going to keep you from eating asphalt but I'm not actually going to tell you that!'"

"You'll get all the practice we can possibly give you tomorrow when Divine and Aki leave." She leans in a little. "So what happened? With the contender?"

I swallow. "I'm going with him tomorrow."

"Really? Then he does know you?" Seria leans her chin in her hand.

"It seems that way," I admit. "According to him… I'm from a place called Satellite. I lived with him and his friends for about ten years, and then I just vanished into thin air. He said he recognized me because I have a twin. A brother, who's a psychic just like I am. And he's still in Satellite. So I'm going to Satellite and I'm going to meet him."

Seria's expression softens. "I'm so happy for you, C." She reaches to grab my hand. "Satellite is a long way away, and it's hard to get to and from there from here. I'll do everything I can to help you prepare for it."

"You've been better to me than I deserve, Seria," I tell her.

"Nonsense. This place isn't what you deserve. It's not what _anyone_ deserves. I only hope that what you find on your journey back is everything you want it to be."

"...me too."

"...I brought this for you, in case you're hungry." She reaches for the bowl of soup she set on my desk. "I suggest you feign immobility until tomorrow. So that leaving is easier."

I nod. But thinking about really leaving makes me feel uneasy. What if it isn't so 'easy'? What if I get caught?

I take the bowl from Seria and set it in my lap when there's another knock on the door; Seria stands and says, "Come in?"

Aki cracks the door open. She sees me and says, "Hey. How are you feeling?"

"How am I _feeling_ ," I breathe. "Aki, you look… you look like somebody just died. What happened today?"

Seria crosses toward the door. "I have some things to take care of. I'll check back on you in a little while, C." She shuts the door on her way out.

Aki crouches down next to my bedside. She's wearing her stabilizer now, and her eyes are darker than usual. "Can you move?"

"Yeah," I admit, "but it hurts to."

"I'm sorry." She reaches tentatively for my hand. "I didn't… I didn't get to talk to you yesterday after… after Divine…"

"Shh, it's okay."

"I'm sorry I said anything, if I caused you to—"

"You didn't cause anything. I promise. I'm grateful you tried to help. I brought this on myself, but at least I got to see you duel."

"It doesn't change the fact that I'm sorry. I should have done more. You wouldn't have had to sneak away."

I remember when we first met, and she would chastise me for disobeying Divine. This feels like a big step from then, and it makes my stomach twist tighter at the thought of leaving her. "Don't you worry about me. Are _you_ okay, Aki?"

"...today was… _horrible_ ," she whispers.

"Did you lose?"

"No. But my opponent knew things about me. _Personal_ things, and he… he ripped them out in front of what must've been the whole city. Things about me, and my parents, and…" Her expression darkens, and she turns her face from me. Like she doesn't want me to see her. "I hurt him. Bad. They had to scrape him off the battlefield and tote him to the hospital when it was over."

"Oh. Aki."

"It's not my fault," she whispers. "It's not my fault he was cruel, or—or that the audience liked him. All I could do was hurt him to make him stop. And I'm not sorry I did it. I just wanted him to stop."

The only thing I can think to say is, "I'm sorry."

"Those people were all horrible. They're the reason we have the Movement. Without this place, C… we'd be stuck out there with all of them."

"I mean," I say softly, trying to pick my words, "I don't know where else I would go."

"I'm glad you weren't there to see it. It was awful."

I swallow. "Anything I can do to make you feel better about it? I felt all the shaking earlier."

"I'm sorry about that. I just had to put my stabilizer back in… it fell out during the duel."

"Oh."

"I'm okay," she says, but she sounds like she's trying to convince herself. "I'll be fine. I just… tomorrow will hopefully be better. I'm one step away from beating Jack Atlas."

"That's wonderful," I say. "I just want to make sure you're feeling okay."

"I'm—fine. I'm worried about you."

"I'll be okay. It's… nothing I'm not used to."

Her lips become a thin, displeased line. "Do you want me to stay until Seria comes back?"

"If you want to—we can just talk. Maybe it'll help you unwind a little, we'll have no more earthquakes."

She breathes out sharply, almost a groan, and leans her head against my quilt-padded leg. I try to feign pain or something like difficulty when I move my hand to stroke her hair.

Maybe I've been wrong about her. Maybe she has more masks than I think. Maybe the ravager is just a mask for Divine, the same way the witch is a mask for Neo Domino. I'm still thinking about yesterday, when she reached to squeeze my hand, that little crack on the witch's mask just to let me know she was still there.

Is it _all_ an act? Maybe she hasn't changed at all from when she first arrived here. Maybe she's still that scared girl who just wants someone to love her. Like little C—eager to please, loved at some point by Divine, still craving that affection.

She has to know who he really is. _Somewhere_ in her. Is there any hope that the ravager she wears is only out of the fear that Divine won't love her anymore if she doesn't play that part? That this Aki, with her head on my lap, is the real one? That neither of us have to put on any masks to earn each other's affection?

Or what if I'm wrong? What if _this_ Aki is the mask? What if she cherishes Arcadia and Divine out of truth, not out of necessity? And, no matter who she is, who will I risk by leaving?

I want to tell her—so badly. About what I've found, where I'm going... I don't want to leave without saying a word and possibly hurting her beyond measure by spiriting myself away. But, if the situation is the latter, I can't trust that she won't tell Divine. And, even if it's not that second one, she might try to stop me. I can't take the chance, and… I can't stay here for her sake.

Seria said that, if Aki stays, Divine is her future, but that situation is too far out of my hands. Divine is the only one with any real influence here, especially on Aki. I need to think of myself today. And I need to hope that my desertion somehow makes it clear to her that she can't stay, either.

"Hey," I mutter at last. "I love you—a lot. No matter what happens, don't ever think that I don't."

"I love you too," she sniffs.

Tomorrow, after I'm gone, I hope she remembers it.

•••

Seria wakes me up the next morning at what feels like the crack of dawn. She says that Aki and Divine are just about to leave, and she leaves my street clothes at the foot of my bed for me to get dressed in as soon as possible.

I don't know what she has planned, but her voice sounded urgent. I drag myself up out of bed and stumble toward the bathroom where I can start brushing my hair out of my eyes. It's gotten so long that almost no movement at all will knot it up, and sometimes I shift so much in my sleep that I lose my side part and wake up with my hair all in my face.

I get dressed very slowly in the bathroom with the door closed, in case someone comes into my room and sees me up and about. I'm sitting on the edge of the tub when I hear Seria's muffled knock from my bedroom door, and I get up to answer it.

"Good, you listened," she says. "Sometimes waking you up is like pulling teeth."

"I like to sleep," I say sheepishly.

"Too bad, it's time to get busy. I just watched them drive off. Bring your work gloves, the yellow ones. Trust me, you'll need them."

It's a confusing suggestion, but I comply and grab my work gloves from one of the cluttered drawers in my desk before I tail her out the door.

She looks back at me as we cross down the hall toward the elevator. "I hope you slept all right?"

"Yeah… More or less." I keep my eyes on the floor. "I… I said a sort-of goodbye to Aki yesterday."

"Did you?"

We slide into the elevator. "She spent a couple hours in my room. We just kind of talked. About us… I told her not to forget that I loved her."

"I'm sure she won't. But I can't say how she'll react when she finds out you're gone."

I try to banish the thought.

We come out on the first floor, and I scurry out after Seria into the courtyard.

"It's chilly," I say.

"It'll burn off, it usually does," Seria remarks. I follow her out toward where she took me yesterday, where Kawasaki's house-sized garage stands.

He's outside, the sleeves of his robes rolled up, and when he looks up toward us from where he's fiddling with a duel runner, I see he's wearing a pair of huge yellow goggles.

"Morning, C!" He calls. His face is smudged with what looks like motor oil. "Are you ready to get started?"

"I-I guess!" I tell him.

"Good, because we don't have a lot of time. If you suck, I'm going to make you walk yourself to the Memorial Circuit this time." He leans over to the other side of the duel runner and picks something up—holds them out to me. "Here, put these on."

"...pads?" I ask, accepting them; they're black and round, a little squishy, with strips of grey Velcro hanging off of them.

"The biggest ones are shoulder pads, the slightly smaller ones are knee pads, and the smallest ones are elbow pads."

"How… how do I put them on?"

"I'll help you." Seria holds her hand out, and I hand her one of the bigger ones. She positions it over my left shoulder and then secures it snugly underneath my arm.

"I feel like I should be scared," I say as Seria straps up my other shoulder.

"Try to stay chill, if you're too scared, you'll have a bad time." Kawasaki grins. "I hope I got all of the nerves out of you yesterday."

"Let's not talk about that," I say. Seria straps a pad to one of my knees, and I watch the way she crosses the straps before I copy her on my other knee. I'm able to put both of the elbow pads on by myself.

"Now take the helmet." Kawasaki passes me a sleek black helmet. "Yesterday, I took you out on that runner, over there." He points into the shed. "Gamma II frame, DWE-3000 engine, KCP-450x in the mainframe. Pretty average, easy with the handling. Good for a beginner, and good for me to keep you from dying!"

I smile nervously.

"I call her Zenith," Kawasaki continues. "This one I'm working on right now is my personal duel runner, Epoch. Today I'm going to have you start practicing on Lariat, who's also in the shed."

"They all have _names_?" I ask.

"'Course." He starts toward the shed. "It's the easiest way to distinguish them from each other, and anyways, it's supposed to be good luck to name it."

"...tell me about Lariat?"

"She's the most basic runner I've got," Kawasaki answers, shoving the shed doors aside. "Beta I frame, DWE-2000 engine, KPC-450 mainframe. Low handling, low speed cap, low weight limit. By practicing on a low-standard runner, it'll be easier for you to handle other lows and even easier when you hit higher-standard ones."

"Okay," I say. It's a lot of information to process.

Kawasaki heaves a runner out through the doors, and I stand aside for him. "You can turn her on yourself, no fingerprint required. I use Lariat for all the training drills, and none of her parts are really worth stealing, so I don't see a point in it. Take her handlebars, pull her this way."

I pull my gloves on, set my helmet on the front seat, and pull. The runner is— _heavy_. I never had to pull the other one, _Zenith_ , and I assume that all duel runners are heavy because they're _vehicles_ , for crying out loud, but… It feels heavier than it _should_ be. Bulky, almost.

Kawasaki shoves one of the barricades aside and lets me into the track. It's just a long stretch of looping road, surrounded by barricades, stretches of iron gate, and the occasional hedge or two. I've always seen this place from a window. Watched other Movement clerics take loops around it. It was what motivated me to build my simulator.

"Now, you're not doing anything fancy," Kawasaki remarks. "We don't have a ton of time, so I'm just going to hope for the best out of you. The best riders learn by experience. I just want you to take as many times on the track as you can until you're comfortable and you know what it feels like. Yesterday doesn't really count, because I was your crutch. I'm not saving you today, okay?"

"But what if I fall?"

"That's what the pads are for—I don't expect you to be perfect. Come on. This is the physical component to your simulator. You remember how to start and stop?"

"Y-Yes?"

"Great!" He kicks the barricade back into place. "Show me what you've got, C!"

He stands on the other side of the gate with Seria and gives me a thumbs up.

I slide my helmet on and wonder if there's any hope of this going well. The runner grumbles to life when I click the ignition, and when I turn the accelerator, it takes a second for it to jump forward.

I take it slow, initially, and notice almost immediately how temperamental the balance aspect of riding is. Before I even reach the first turn, I skid onto my side on the asphalt and the runner tips lamely over in front of me.

"Find your center of balance!" Kawasaki calls. "Lariat has a tiny balance point for a reason!"

"What does that _mean_ ," I groan.

"Sit! Up! Straight!" He says, hands cupped around his mouth. "Go again!"

I struggle to heave Lariat up off of the ground, and I lean into the runner a little in my attempt to balance this time. I stay up longer, but I lose my balance right before the first turn. Now, though, I think I know what he's talking about.

"You have to adjust, move with it!"

"I know, I know," I mutter. I pull Lariat up again and back myself up a few feet, then take it again going toward the turn. If I move even a little, I'm going to tilt. I don't know if it's the runner, or if it's me, or if it's just aerodynamics, but that's the way it feels like it works.

I do okay going toward the turn, but it takes more to turn the thing than I thought. Moving my center of balance tilts the runner from side to side, but shifting balance isn't near enough to take me around the turn. The runner smacks into the barricade with a crunching noise that makes my bones rattle and shivers rip down my spine.

"You're fine!" Kawasaki is jogging up alongside the gate. "That noise was just the barricade! I promise, that thing isn't going to break unless it gets chucked. It's the sturdiest runner I've got."

"W-Why does it tilt so easy, but that doesn't turn it?" I exclaim.

"Turning is different than moving. Moving is shifting, turning is leaning. Does that make any sense?"

"I… think, _maybe_?"

"Remember yesterday, we were leaning to turn? If you lean too deep, though, you'll wipe out. Back up and try it again."

I lose my balance three more times trying to take the turn—the first two, I don't lean enough, and the third, I lean too much. My fourth try is shaky, but I survive it and right myself to keep going toward the second turn.

It's all by muscle memory, I realize. Making the same movements and knowing yourself and just how much it takes to do what on your runner. On this runner, everything is on a hairpin, except for turning. To turn without hurting something, I have to practically yank the runner in the direction I want it to go in. My memories of yesterday say that Zenith took little effort to turn—maybe because of the help I was getting from Kawasaki—but it also tells me that it might vary depending on the duel runner. I think I know what he was talking about, before, when he mentioned "low-standard runners."

I don't know how long I'm out there on Lariat, just that the sun keeps getting harsher and I'm determined to build some type of muscle memory for the way that this feels: turning and leaning and keeping stationary. I keep count of how many laps I take without spilling, and if I break the streak, I get up and I start counting over again.

The only reason I stop is because, at some point, Kawasaki comes out, jumping and waving his arms in front of me. I skid to a very sloppy, almost dangerously quick, stop, and he throws a bottle of water at me.

"I lost you for a few hours, there!" He says.

"A few _hours_ ," I repeat, sneaking words in between catching my breath. I've downed almost half the contents of the water bottle in the time between his observation and my reply.

"Hey, whatever it takes to get you comfortable. Air out for a second, and bring Lariat back this way."

I pull Lariat along with me. It's easier to pull, now that I've been pivoting it around the track for, apparently, a few hours. When we reach the shed, I stop and lean against Lariat to catch my breath and drink some water.

Kawasaki shoves another duel runner out through the shed and props it up next to me. It's sleek and black, too, streaked with purple and green in some places. "Meet Hiraeth."

"Do I…" I look over it. "Do I get to ride this one, now?"

"Sure, you can take her around the track a few times before you go." Kawasaki pats the interface screen. "Omega frame, DWE-4000 engine, KPC-900 mainframe. Full Level III shield, Rank II Side Armor, Rank II Booster, and a Rank III Balancer. All the bells and whistles. Careful on those tilts and turns, because she's nowhere near as bulky as Lariat. Take her for a spin."

I roll Hiraeth onto the track through the open gate, and when it roars to life under me, I notice the difference in the way it feels versus the way Lariat felt. When I shoot forward to take my first lap, I notice the immediate difference in how easy it is to ride it. As a matter of fact, I almost take a spill on the first turn because it doesn't take anywhere near the strength that Lariat needed. Hiraeth requires only the slightest lean for me to take the first turn. It feels faster, lighter when I readjust my position on the track, and the wind resistance almost feels less, too.

I don't know how many laps I take, but at some point Kawasaki runs out onto the track, waving his arms madly again, presumably to get me to stop. I careen to a halt in front of him, feeling like laughing, and he says, "You can't be here all day, kid!"

"This one's better!" I say. "This one's a _lot_ better!"

"Good," Kawasaki replies, "because she's yours."

"...what now?"

"Our gift to you!" He gestures to Seria, who's leaning over one of the barricades to my right. "Mine and Seria's—Seria asked me to teach you to ride, anyways, and I thought maybe it would be a nice farewell-present!"

"Y-You're just… _giving_ it to me?!"

"Yeah, that's what a _present_ is."

"Use it to get to Satellite," Seria calls. "It's a long trip, C."

"W-Will… Will Divine be upset with you?" I exclaim.

"Not if he doesn't know about it!" Kawasaki offers. "I'll head down to Daimon today or tomorrow and pawn a junk frame, put together another one of those babies before he makes me take inventory for the month. No harm done." He claps a hand on my shoulder. "It feels like we're done for the day, and I'm impressed! Either you're a quick learner, or pre-Arcadia C had a bit of time on a duel runner. You're a natural."

I feel like I should have memories of riding—even muscle memory, if I'd done it before. But who knows?

"I expect you to take that thing out every day, though. After a few hours on the course, obviously you're going to have the feel for it, but tomorrow morning you'll already be a little rusty. Now, Seria's got something else for you. It's about time for you to hit the road."

I dismount Hiraeth and slide my helmet off, shaking my hair out like a slightly sweaty dog. When I meet Seria outside of the gate, she hands me a very weighty backpack.

"Your schematics notebooks, your simulator, and anything else you might need," she tells me. "Or want."

I close my fingers around the shoulder straps. "Thank you."

"It's the least I could do." She fiddles with her hands as I slip the pack on, as if nervous. I've never once seen Seria fidget. "I wanted you to have the time to do this before… before you left. It'll be easier for you to travel. I wish we had more time for you to practice, but—"

"It's okay," I say softly. "I'll just… go slowly. And practice every day."

"Be careful on your way to Satellite. Stay safe, keep out of sight when you're at the Circuit… and go find yourself, C."

"I will," I promise her. "Am I ever going to see you again?"

"If we meet again," she answers, "it'll be because _I_ find _you._ I want you to go and never come back here, C. You need to promise me that you won't come back here, because, if you come back, Divine will never let you out of his sights again."

I swallow. "You'll be okay, right?"

"Don't you worry about me. Everybody here will be fine."

"Thank you for everything you've done for me, Seria."

"No thanks necessary." She clasps my hand in between hers. "It's been a pleasure to serve you, C."

I throw my arms around her. "Thank you. I love you."

There's a pause in her, stalling even her breath, and when she replies, she sounds choked up. "I love you too. Now get going."

So I rush away, stuffing my hair into my helmet as I cross the courtyard toward Kawasaki and Hiraeth.

"Don't fall," he says with a smug sort-of smile.

"...thank you," I say.

He raises an eyebrow. "For the advice, or the duel runner?"

"For _everything_."

"Don't mention it, kid. One last thing, though." He holds out this metal-looking thing a little thicker around than my Stabilizer. "This is a wrist dealer, it's for you. The cards in it are the standard Movement-issued deck. Psychic-types, counter Traps, a few Speed Spells, the whole shabang." He gestures for me to come closer and takes hold of my wrist. The dealer snaps on around my forearm, over the clouds and ravens tattooed on my left arm. "Hiraeth is keyed into your thumbprint. Seria took it from Divine's system files and I loaded you into it while you were on Lariat. The duel disk in it will disengage for you and attach to that wrist dealer, should you ever need it."

"I… thank you," I repeat.

"Go break your cipher, _Cipher_."

I climb onto the back of Hiraeth and rip a glove off. The runner roars to life when it recognizes my fingerprint on the ignition. Seria and Kawasaki stand by to watch me inch off into the street, and then I'm roaring down the road. Alive and full of wind and sound and breath, bouncing along the asphalt and gripping Hiraeth's handlebars so hard that it's almost like I'll fly away if I don't.

The Arcadia Movement becomes one in a myriad of skyscrapers behind me, and just like Seria told me to, I don't look back.


	9. The Line I Walk

The realization that I'm out on my own, _officially_ , hits me the second I have to weave my way through a busy street on my way to the Circuit without having a panic attack. Maybe it's the hours I spent getting a feel for my center of balance, or maybe it's something else, but it's easier than I think (even with all of my panic) to get to the Circuit unscathed.

Was there truth to what Kawasaki said earlier? Is this familiar because I've done it before, back before the Movement, or is it just familiar because I rode yesterday and all this morning?

I guess I'll find out when I get to Satellite?

I linger around the contender's entrance, but… do I just leave Hiraeth here? No one should steal it, there's the thumbprint ignition thing to worry about, but I'm still leery about leaving it out in the open. I don't want to chance losing what Kawasaki was so generous to have given me.

"Hey!" I flinch when a Security on the other side of the gate points at me. "No idling! Duel runner entrance is over there!"

"O-Oh!" I manage. "I'm sorry! Thanks!" I inch toward where he pointed—an underpass-looking entrance to the right of the door I took before, and a little ways past the gate. I feel the Security's eyes on me as I pull over toward it, past a little opening in the gate that's just big enough for Hiraeth to pass through.

Maybe he thought I was a contender. Or something. I don't know. I'm not going to question it.

The tunnel scoops down, down, down, and starts to loop around in an arc shape. I'm still inching along, trying not to hit any walls, and then everything starts shaking around me.

An earthquake? Or what? It's gone after I sit there for a couple seconds.

I try to rush myself out of this underpass, after that, and I come up into a long hall lit with big hanging lamps. I can hear shouting, almost, or something like it, as if the sound is coming from another room that's not too far, but also not terribly close. I can make out a few familiar words, like 'spell' and 'turn' amidst a jumble of other voices.

I must be near the inner stadium, where the duels are taking place. And I came in from underground, so… it dawns on me that the 'earthquake' I felt earlier must have been a product of me riding beneath the dueling field.

To my right is a row of metal doors that look like they can be shoved up and open. If I came in the duel runner entrance, I think it might be safe to assume that this is where duel runners get stored—maybe this is where Yusei is, but which door is his?

Oddly enough, though, I don't sense anyone here. When I stop and tug up one of the doors, it opens, but the room is empty.

Today is the semi-final, Yusei said yesterday, and it'll definitely be followed by the final. Aki doesn't have a duel runner—she's never really had any interest in riding—so their semi-final will be standing duel only. If Aki beats him, she'll have a standing duel with Jack Atlas. But, if Yusei wins… It'll make sense if his duel runner isn't here. He'll probably face off with Jack Atlas in a turbo duel.

I tug the garage door shut and power Hiraeth off. It should be safe here; at least, here, it isn't out in the open.

I should definitely look for Yusei, or, at least, look for somewhere where I can find out who is dueling. I'll have to lay low in case Divine is around… stay smart, keep my eyes and ears out.

I can't go back to the Movement today—not _ever_. I remember what Seria said, that if I come back, Divine won't ever give me a chance to go again.

 _I'm going to Satellite, I'm going to Satellite_ , I repeat to myself as I creep down the hall outside of the garage. I make a mental note of the door I left out of; four from the end of the hall. I fiddle with my gloves, with my wrist dealer, as I go, trying to keep my hands busy enough so that I can try to focus on what I'm doing.

The fact is that I don't know how to bounce frequencies. I've read about it, but it sort of went in one ear and out the other with all of the meaningless descriptions. Retaining information is easy enough, ironically, but often I can't make sense of what I read unless I have a way to exemplify the directions. Later, when I get the time, maybe I could ask Yusei to teach me.

If I can get safely to the waiting room where the viewing screen, I can see what's happening: who's dueling whom. If it's Aki trying to take down Jack Atlas, or Yusei.

I don't know who I hope it is. My instincts say Aki, but I remember Yusei's disdain talking about how he was 'stuck here.' Which of them is more eager to be done? More eager to win? I've yet to see Yusei duel, but he must be good if he made the semi-final against Aki.

I push open the door to the main hall and peek out, stretching out and searching for any sort of psychic energy.

When I was young and still learning what it was to Specify, I learned that all psychics feel pretty much the same. Only the strongest of them can suppress their auras or create ones large enough to be distinct. For me, everything pulses, like a little heartbeat. Bird's wings or hopping down a flight of stairs, beating against the back of my head like sticks on drum heads.

And, right now, all I can feel is me.

It's a good sign. Divine never suppresses his aura, and I'm pretty sure that Aki doesn't know how. I slip out into the hall and start at a brisk walk in the direction of the waiting room.

To my right, I hear an elevator and the telltale 'dinging' sound that says it's stopping on this floor. I don't know where it is, or if there will be anyone in it. I'm almost to the waiting room, and when I figure out what's going on, I can figure out what to do next.

Suddenly there's a man in the hall with me—or _several_ men. I think they came in a door to the right, but it's almost like they came in out of thin air.

Four of them: three, taller, all dark-haired and wearing tailored grey suits. The fourth is the shortest, actually he's pretty much dwarfed by his bodyguard-looking counterparts, and he's all color. White trousers, a finely tailored coat and necktie trimmed with ribbons of gold, blurs of white and red makeup brushed across his face, colors like champagne and dark pink and lavender settling on him like sunlight.

"Miss Cipher," the smallest one says, holding out a little gloved hand, "would you be so kind as to come with us?"

"Who—" I swallow. What's the best question to ask? "Who are you with?"

"Not the Arcadia Movement," he laughs, "that's for sure."

I've never seen him, or anyone like him, in Arcadia, that's for sure. But there are a lot of things about the Movement I know I've never seen. "How can I trust that?"

"Come with us, please," he repeats. "Director Goodwin has requested a meeting with you. Rest assured, The Arcadia Movement at large is absent from the stadium at the moment and will not present a danger to either of us."

 _Director Goodwin_. That's the man who arranged the Fortune Cup. The man who investigated Divine. The _Director_ of the _Security Maintenance Bureau_.

Wants... to meet... _me_?

"What does he want?" I ask.

"All questions can be answered. Please be cooperative." The little man flashes a smile. "My dear, we already knew you were coming. We wouldn't have allowed you into the building had we not planned this meeting."

The Security… was instructed to let me in, then?

"Right this way."

"I don't have a choice. Do I?"

"The Director has no interest in hurting you, Miss Cipher. I assure you, if he did, he would have contacted that insufferable Arcadia founder and tattled on you."

I swallow. There's a lot these people must know.

I keep my hands in fists at my sides and follow the little man as he turns back toward the door he must've come in through. One of the big bodyguards opens the door, and the other two make a human wall at our backs.

"W-What's your name?" I ask as we head down another hallway. When we reach an elevator, one of the bodyguards punches the 'up' button.

He chuckles a little bit—his voice is light, almost even _pleasant_ , when he's not making demands. "My name is Yeager, I work directly beneath Director Goodwin."

"Why does the Director… why does he want to see me?"

"Call it curiosity."

The elevator opens on a floor where the linoleum has been replaced with tile, and the only doors are a big set of double doors down at the very end of the hall. Yeager takes me all the way down, and the bodyguards remain standing out front as Yeager pushes the door open.

This room looks a little like the observation area in the Movement building; all plated with glass, carpet that grabs my shoes. At the furthest end, there's a man sitting in a big gray chair and a woman, standing, holding what looks like a digital file.

Yeager gestures for me to keep going forward. For all the signs that this isn't a good thing… why do I feel like this can't be a trap? Director Goodwin, a man who Divine hates… calling me to speak with him? How does he even know who I am?

"Cipher," the man in the chair says lightly. "How nice to see you after such a long time."

"I-I've never met you," I say softly.

"What a shame your memory isn't in as good shape as mine is. Considering my age, it should be the other way around. Come, sit, watch the duel with us."

I wring my hands, trying to stay focused, and come around the grouping of chairs and a sofa in front of the front window. I pick the sofa to sit in, a step or two down from where the man in the chair is.

The man is in a smart-looking blue-grey suit, and his grey-white hair is almost longer than mine—pulled back, presumably, to keep it out of his face.

"H-Hi," I say.

"Now, Cipher, I don't bite." For a second, his expression looks kind of friendly. "I'm Director Rex Goodwin. It's a pleasure to be reacquainted with you."

"I-I…" I swallow. "I prefer C."

"C, then." He cocks his head a bit, toward the pretty young woman standing next to him. "Mikage, make a note of that."

She scribbles furiously on what I now realize is a datapad.

"Why am I here?" I ask. " _Sir_?"

"To be quite frank, this stadium is equipped with, likely, the highest standard of security system in all of Neo Domino City. Security runs a facial scan of everyone who walks in and out. Imagine my surprise when Divine's, ah… _child_ appears to witness my tournament. And, after so many years, it would appear that he still has problems letting you breathe a bit of fresh air."

"Divine _isn't_ my father—"

"Anyone with eyes could see that."

I fiddle with the looser areas of my gloves—where the leather has worn so much that I can pull it away from my palm. "What do you know about me, exactly?"

"Let's begin with a different question. How much do you know about me?"

"I... know that Divine doesn't like you too much. That you investigated him at some point, and he doesn't like you for it."

"Fair." He reaches for a fragile looking teacup from the table next to him. "Divine simply does not like it when other people get in the way of his plans. My job, as it were, requires me to adequately lead investigations of illegal activity. Among other things."

Illegal activity? "What illegal activity?"

"Besides smuggling a Satellite child into my city? There were plenty of things." He lifts the teacup to his lips. "All of the fake information was quite impressive, I'll give him that."

"Y-You know about what Divine did with me?" I blurt. "Can you tell me anything? I-Is that why you brought me here?"

"Don't be ridiculous. I brought you here to watch your friend duel." He gestures down toward the window. "You're just in time for things to take a turn for the more… interesting."

I peer down toward the track. It's a turbo duel. I recognize the blur of Yusei's shiny red duel runner.

So Aki lost. Did she leave or stay for this duel? I must have just missed her. I'll have to ask Yusei about the way it went later. Is it a cruel wish to hope Aki didn't hurt him?

"It would have been interesting if the Izayoi girl had made it to this point," Goodwin says, "but this matchup was most certainly fated. Jack and Yusei are old friends gone wrong, they were always working up to this."

"Old friends gone… _wrong_?"

"There's much you've yet to discover. I'm sure your trip to Satellite will be very educational."

"How… how did you know about that?"

"They say that the walls have ears for a reason."

I swallow. "I-I don't believe that you brought me here for some friendly conversation."

"What do you believe, then?"

"I don't know," I admit. "Maybe it has something to do with—Divine, or I don't know—"

"If you think I brought you here to deliver you back to him," Director Goodwin remarks, "you're wrong. Divine has been a thorn in my side for much too long, and there's no way I'm not going to take opportunity to return the favor. However, I would very much like to learn how _clear_ you are on the situation you've landed yourself in."

"What _situation_?" I demand.

"I love history," he states. "Mythology, especially. Have you a soft spot for myths and legends, C?"

"What does this have to do with anything?"

"In many pantheons," Goodwin continues, "gods mark their vassals, their children, their chosen. Anyone marked by a god is often blessed beyond belief, or cursed. It depends on what you believe. Heroes, I believe, are born rather than made."

"...you seem to have less of a soft spot for _myth_ ," I say, "and more of a soft spot for _fate_."

"Perhaps." He looks toward me, at last, after having spent the entire conversation with his gaze pinned to the board in the center of the Circuit displaying the contenders' LP.

His eyes are crushingly blue—for a second, I almost find familiarity in them. I think they're mine, but there's no grey in them. The grey's all in his face, on his person. A young man wearing the shell of an old one.

"Whether you know it or not, your fate now seems to be entangled in strings that belong to the gods," he says. "I can't prevent you from traveling to Satellite with your friend Yusei, just as I couldn't prevent you from gaining a foothold in Aki Izayoi's heart."

"What are you talking about?" I exclaim.

"Details in due time." He uncaringly waves a white gloved hand. "My only concern is where you will stand when the day comes. I must know: if your city were to burn, would you fight to save it?"

"I have no idea what you're asking me," I say.

"I understand that you aren't yet grown, and that you're, in essence, as without a home as you are without memory. But if your home and your city were endangered, would you gather your wits and fight for it? Pull on the morale of your friends and family and urge them to fight for it, too?"

I keep fiddling with my gloves. "If I find a home, or friends, or a family," I say, "I'll be sure to let you know."

"D-Director? Sir?" The woman with the datapad frantically points down at the field—and I follow her hand to find that Yusei and Jack Atlas have vanished. On the field, there are two huge dragons that almost look like they're made of stone.

I fling myself to my feet. Where did they go? What happened?

"It's begun," Goodwin says. "I look forward to our next meeting, C. I advise you to be smart from here on out."

"Smart about _what_?" I remark.

"If you leave Neo Domino, you are beyond choosing to stay uninvolved in the events that are meant to conspire."

"Are you _serious_?" I say. "Stop—stop being _cryptic_! Calling me up here for this weird meeting, or _whatever_ , just to make comments about Divine and say shit about _gods_! You know that Divine took me from my real home, so you must know that I'm going back no matter what! You even said you weren't going to stop me! Do you even have anything normal you want to say to me?"

"Hm," he says softly. "You're the spitting image of your mother."

Everything in me heaves upwards. " _What_?"

"Enjoy your trip to Satellite. Yeager? Please escort C back to her duel runner, Divine is still within the stadium, and it would be a travesty if he were to take her back to Arcadia."

"Y-You can't just—!"

"This way, please," Yeager interrupts. "They've entered Turn 8, and I'd rather beat the press rush."

"You can't _do_ that!" I say. "You can't say things like that and expect me to just _leave_!"

Goodwin's teacup explodes.

Yeager jumps backward a little, from where he's standing on the step to my left, but Goodwin doesn't even flinch.

"Temper, temper, C," he states, examining the tea stain on his blazer. "Are all of Divine's psychics not as well-trained as he believes them to be?"

Yeager and two of the bodyguard-looking men escort me out of the room. I'm fuming, my hands clenched at my sides, all the way back toward the elevator.

"Your boss sucks," I say.

"He doesn't owe you any of your answers, I'm afraid. He didn't even owe you the warning he just issued to you, especially with you being so ornery, but he gave it anyways. On a normal day, you'd be in the _Detention Center_ for that kind of behavior, so consider yourself _lucky_!"

"That was a _shit_ excuse for a _warning_ ," I say. "It had nothing to do with anything. Myths are myths and _fate isn't real_."

"Whatever you believe, remember that conversation and what _my boss_ said about the significance of marks. Maybe then you'll understand exactly why it was so important to ask you upstairs."

"Whatever."

Halfway through the elevator ride, one of the bodyguards inhales fast. I turn over my shoulder to look at him and see that one of the lenses on his eyeglasses has shattered.

" _Honestly_ , must you break so much?" Yeager retorts.

"Director Goodwin knows about where I came from and who I came from and _obviously_ won't tell me," I snap. "I'll break whatever the _fuck_ I please."

" _Language_ ," Yeager sniffs. "Or I'll be taking you to the Detention Center _myself_."

I dig my hands into the palms of my gloves, scratching at the worn leather around the heel of my hand. I have no idea what the Detention Center is, but it sounds like a place I'd rather not be in. I don't know if he's serious, or if he's trying to scare me. Does this person even have any sway with Goodwin?

"What you've yet to learn," Yeager remarks, "is that most journeys, especially into the past, must be taken _alone_."

"Yeah. Whatever." The bodyguards close around us as we exit the elevator. "...you can could've at least told me what illegal things Divine has been doing."

"I should think it to be common sense," Yeager states, "that _electrical torture_ is illegal."

I turn my eyes on him.

The guards around us make a beeline toward the door to the rows of garages. "Your friend Yusei should be out of the fifth door from this entrance. Once the duel ends, that is."

One of the bodyguards wrenches the door open for me. My breath is stuck in my throat, so I walk back in silence.

All of those words about Divine and my mother and gods swirl around in my head and my stomach. Did Director Goodwin know things about me before or after his investigation into Arcadia? And what does it mean that he would allude to them, but not tell me about them? It's something cruel to say, in Yeager's words, that Goodwin "doesn't owe me an explanation" and yet he would hint that he has the capability to tell me so much.

What did he gain from that? From feigning civility and issuing some half-baked warning about something impossible? Gods, and—and _marks_. And 'my city' in flames?

And—he knew about what Divine was doing to me. The most powerful man in the city, the Director of the closest thing to law enforcement in Neo Domino knew about what was being done to me, Yeager just hinted that it was illegal, but he didn't stop it.

He knew I was in Arcadia, he knew Divine was lying about my origins. He knew it all.

But I guess his excuse is that he didn't owe me anything. Now I feel nauseous. And I feel like I deserve to hate him for leaving me high and dry.


	10. Spinning In My Head

_Fifth from the entrance_. I wrench the fifth door down the hall out of my way. Empty, of course. Whatever is happening outside right now, the duel isn't over.

Where did they go? And what happened with those stone dragons?

I shove the sheet metal door on the far side of the room up and walk all the way down toward the end of the tunnel, to where I left Hiraeth. My mind's a mess, and all I'd like for it to do is shut down for a few seconds. Thinking about Goodwin makes me angry, and thinking about what could have become of Yusei makes it feel like my stomach has skyrocketed through a roof. But I can't think of anything else to take my attention or make me stop dwelling on it either, so I'm forced to wait out the worry and the anger until something else happens.

I pull the fourth door from where I came in open. Hiraeth's still there, untouched, and as I wrench it out into the open tunnel, I see a muddy version of my face reflected in the shiny surface of its frame.

 _You're the spitting image of your mother_.

Who's waiting for me in Satellite? My _twin_ —my brother, my features on someone else… with power like mine. Do I have a mother there, too? My face aged twenty years? Still mourning the lost child she carried? Gentle hands, gentle eyes, gentle hands that feel like home?

What does my father look like? Is he slim and blonde like me? With steady hands for tinkering? The kind of father heroines in books have, who passes gentle judgements when asked and takes his coffee black?

I can't believe in what Divine has said before, that he took me away from a bad, or insinuated _worse_ , situation. I can't muster any faith to convince me that Arcadia was better for me than whatever I had before. I have to keep faith that, if my brother is psychic and alive, that anything I have there couldn't be worse than Arcadia.

Just _better_. I have to hope for _better_.

I'm almost to the garage Yusei was using when I hear an explosion of applause. Shouting and screaming, as if from a different room, and tumultuous noise like thunder sounding off from far away.

Has the duel ended? I stand there in the open garage with a hand on Hiraeth, waiting out the noise for… something. I don't know what.

It isn't a long time before I decide to try to wrench the garage door shut, and the door to the hall suddenly bursts open.

"C! Great!" I turn to find Himuro halfway in the door. "...you have a duel runner?"

"Y-Yeah," I stutter. "It's, uh… new."

"Great, Yusei was worried about how we'd find you, so I'm glad I caught you here. Don't close that just yet."

"What's going on?" I ask. "You're in a hurry."

"Yeah, we've got to get the hell out of here." Himuro shoves the garage door up again. "Bring your runner this way. I'll explain on the way."

"O-Okay!" I say. I grab onto Hiraeth and pull it out into the tunnel again; Himuro slams the garage door shut behind us. "On the way where?"

"There's press everywhere, which makes an easy exit from here almost impossible. I've got a friend who used to be a professional rider, though, and he knew about an underpass we can use that runs right outside. No press there."

"Why are we worried about press?" I ask as I pull Hiraeth after him.

"Were—you weren't watching, kid?"

"I-I just got here!" I say hotly. "I mean, more or less—"

"Well, Yusei's… uh, I guess he takes Jack's title. King or something like that."

"He _won_?"

"You sound surprised!"

"I've never seen him duel!"

"That's your own fault."

"Well, sorry, I was a little preoccupied!" I say hotly. "How was the whole thing? I assume he's good, if he just toppled a reigning champion."

"Yusei on a dueling field is _almost_ a religious experience," Himuro remarks. "Trust me, I've been beaten by him. He could be the best duelist I've ever seen."

"That's a tall order," I say. "He isn't even here to agree or disagree with you."

"Good thing, too. He's annoyingly humble." Himuro wrenches a door near the end of the tunnel out of his way. "When you get the chance next, sit in and watch him. You'll see what I mean."

The door leads in through another series of sheet metal doors that look like more garage doors. The pathway twists down, for what feels like forever, and I keep rolling Hiraeth along in front of me. When the tunnel finally evens out and stops twisting, we're in a long, dank passageway with dim lamps hanging along the ceiling high over our heads.

"I've still gotta go get Yusei," Himuro tells me. "We were looking for you, but… well, I found you, so we should be good to get the hell out of this place. The others should already be down here."

"Others?"

We round a corner and I almost slip on a wet patch of concrete—it smells musty in here, like damp wood. Three figures haloed in the dim glow of the fluorescent lights turn toward us.

"Himuro!" A boy's voice shouts. "Did you bring Yusei?"

"No, I have to go back up and get him," Himuro answers, turning from us to go running back the direction we came from. He's still shouting at us as he goes. "This is another one of Yusei's friends, she's coming with us!"

When I get close enough to them to make out more features than shapes and shadows, I set my eyes on a little man who has to be something like fifty or sixty years old and another boy and a girl who are each other's spitting image—twins.

"You were a contender, right?" I blurt at the girl. On the first day, I could've sworn I saw her ponytails up on the screen in the waiting area.

"Technically," the boy twin says, stretching like he's trying to display whatever arm muscles he has, "we _both_ were—"

"No, you're an idiot who doesn't like when I don't want to do something you want to do," the girl interrupts. "My brother dressed up as me because I didn't want to duel and totally embarrassed himself."

"I-I did not! I mean, I did dress up, but I didn't… 'embarrass' myself!"

"Oh, just forget it." The girl turns toward me, her face only half doused in light from the lamps. "My name's Ruka. My brother's Rua. What's your name?"

"I'm C," I say. When I look at her… it could be my imagination, the feeling is so faint, but something around her pulses like she could be like me. A psychic.

"Just the letter?" The boy, Rua, asks.

"It's just a nickname." I look toward the older man. "What's your name?"

"Just call me Yanagi," he replies. He has a friendly and bouncy, albeit crackly with age, type of voice. "Pleased to meet you!"

"And we're all here out of knowing Yusei?" I say. Seems like he's also the type of person to collect friendships.

"Yeah. We've got a lot to talk to him about when we get out of here," Ruka remarks, turning her eyes down toward the ground.

"He's the new King now!" Rua exclaims. "That's an awesome kind of surreal, that I'm friends with the King of Turbo Duels!"

"Is that _really_ the title?" I ask.

"It was Jack Atlas' before," Yanagi remarks.

"I'm pretty sure he gave it to himself," Ruka adds.

"That makes much more sense," I say. "Himuro said something about reporters. Are there really so many people that we can't get out from up above ground?"

"Nobody's beaten Jack for as long as he's been in Neo Domino," Ruka replies. "If we didn't sneak Yusei out, we probably wouldn't see him for days."

"Oh, good, he's popular," I retort. "Won't they just follow us?"

"We're heading to Daimon to try and keep out of the press firestorm for now," Yanagi tells me. "If we're good enough at staying out of sight, we'll be okay. Yusei has a place there where he's been staying."

"Wow. You guys definitely have everything all planned out."

The four of us stay stuck in place for a moment, and I'm searching for something else to say, when Rua starts waving madly at something behind me. When I turn, I see Yusei and Himuro on their way toward us; the lamplights flicker off of Yusei's duel runner in fat, dim beams.

"Glad you could make it, C," Yusei says. "...nice runner."

"Thanks, it's—pretty new," I admit.

"We're all here?" Himuro asks. "Great, let's start walking. It's not too far to Daimon from here."

"This place exits straight into Daimon?" I ask.

"It exits all over the city. It used to be a delivery network, and then when it was discontinued as a road, some of the old pros used to use it for late-night practice."

I roll Hiraeth along next to Ruka. "How nice for us."

"It'll keep us out of sight, that's for sure," Yusei exhales.

"...how was everything?" I ask him. "I didn't get here until maybe a half hour ago."

"Long. I'm exhausted." He turns to me. "Your friend Aki is a real piece of work."

I try to search for the right words. "Did… How badly did she try to hurt you?"

"Oh, you know. I was dropped from at _least_ ten feet in the air. Normal Wednesday afternoon."

"I'm… _so_ sorry."

"Don't worry about it. It's my problem, not yours." He shakes his head. "I think I figured her out during that duel."

I'm about to ask him what he means, when Rua pipes up, "Hold up! You're friends with the Witch Lady?"

 _Witch_ makes me flinch. "Yeah, I… I came from Arcadia."

"Arcadia?!"

"So you're—psychic?" Ruka asks. I've barely nodded my head when she blurts, "I _knew_ I felt something!"

"Wha—I—I thought I felt something from you, too!" I exclaim. "You _are_ a psychic!"

"I mean… more or less? I don't know. I've never called myself one. Does knowing _you're_ one count?"

"It's called Specifying," I tell her. "Every psychic has a different constitution of power, so we're classified in sub-categories due to our abilities."

"Really? There are categories?"

"Most, if not all, psychics have the ability to Specify. It's when we can distinguish common people from people like us."

"What are you?"

"I Specify and I Waste," I answer. "Wasters are a level upward from Specifiers. It's a general form of telekinesis, mostly like moving things or whatever."

"So…" she looks up at me earnestly. "You don't "sense", you Specify? And you don't… "use telekinesis", you Waste?"

"Yeah, exactly. And there are plenty of other categories that others fit under."

" _Somebody_ found a new best friend," Himuro scoffs.

"I've just never met another person with abilities like mine," Ruka admits. "That girl Aki was the first one I'd seen out in the open. But she didn't seem like much of a talker."

"Aki has her reasons," I say. "I've known her for a long time. I know what makes her tic, and that's probably why we're friends. Or _were_. When she finds out I left Arcadia, something tells me she won't want to call me a friend anymore."

"Wait, so you just left," Ruka says. "You just _deserted_?"

"It was the only way I could get out," I tell her. "I was never allowed to leave the building before. I had to sneak out."

"How'd you end up tagging along with us?" Rua asks.

"C is from Satellite," Yusei pipes up. "We grew up together."

"Really?"

"We don't know how, but she ended up in the city," Yusei adds. "She'd been missing for a long time, and her memory isn't doing so hot. I was planning on bringing her back to Satellite to see her brother."

"Apparently," I say, "I have a twin just like you."

Ruka beams.

"Hey, Himuro?" Rua asks. "How d'you know where we get out? Like to get into Daimon?"

"There are landmarks," he replies. "This isn't the first time I've been down here, kid."

"Oh, okay, good."

"C?" Ruka asks softly.

I think it's the first time I've ever liked the way my nickname sounds. "What is it?"

"Since you're friends with Aki, would you happen to know anything about her mark?"

"Her mark," I say slowly. "The claw, you mean? On her arm?"

Ruka nods.

"I… don't know anything explicit about it. I know that it must be magic, somehow, because it glows sometimes. Divine used to talk about it like it was magic, or—or ethereal, or something. All I could surmise was that it wasn't human."

"Right," Yusei pipes up suddenly. "I owe you an explanation about that, don't I?"

"It would be nice," I tell him.

"To start, there are two other people besides me and Aki who have a similar marking," he says.

"C saw your mark, then?" Ruka asks.

"I saw him _glow_ ," I clarify. "I didn't know they weren't exclusive to Aki."

"Well, they aren't _exactly_ magic," Yanagi chimes. "Pretty close, though!"

"You thought they were magic and you just didn't question it?" Himuro asks.

"I'm a psychic, buddy," I retort. "I don't really have the right to question _anything_ remotely strange."

"Okay, that's fair."

"So, then, everyone else here has also seen you glow?" I ask, turning toward Yusei.

"Sort of," he says. "Ruka's another person with a mark."

"Really?" I say. "Who's number four?"

"Jack Atlas!" Rua pipes up.

"Whoa, okay… all four of you were at this tournament, then."

"I'm glad I'm not the only one who finds that odd," Yusei remarks. "Actually, _I_ was threatened into taking part in it. Remember when I mentioned to you that I got some friends into a bad spot?"

"Yeah?"

"The tournament organizers were holding some of my Satellite friends captive—they wouldn't let them go unless I participated. I think that the guy in charge, Director Goodwin, was using the Fortune Cup specifically to confirm that the four of us were marked."

"That would explain how Aki got an invite," I say. "When she told me about it, she kept saying she was surprised by it—no one knew about Arcadia before the Fortune Cup, and it was supposed to be full of 'prestigious duelists'."

"Some weird stuff happened at this tournament, though," Himuro states. "Something appeared in the sky—this huge glowing thing. It looked like it was made of fire."

"During that last duel, between Jack and Yusei, the four of us all had this vision," Ruka says. "I know because I saw everyone else in it, aware of me like I was aware of them. Jack and Yusei and Aki."

"Satellite was up in flames," Yusei adds, sounding perplexed. "I don't know what caused it, or why it was happening. I just know that I have this sinking feeling that it's going to happen."

I feel heat leaving my body. _If your city were to go up in flames_ , Goodwin told me, _would you fight to save it_?

Satellite isn't—my city. I haven't even been there yet.

But how much, exactly, does he know?

"We were getting called 'Signers'," Ruka says. "I don't even know what that means."

"Well, it's a good thing I'm here!" Yanagi chimes. "When I was your age, I spent all my time traveling—learned a lot!"

"Maybe save the explanation until we get out of this hole," Himuro interrupts, pointing ahead of us. "See that broken light? Right under that's the tunnel we need to take that leads up aboveground. It's narrow, so take it single file; duel runners out first."

Himuro leads, and the six of us file into a considerably narrower tunnel than we were in before. As we continue forward through it, the ground starts to slope upward, and suddenly I'm following Himuro and Yusei out of what almost looks like a big sewer pipe dripping moisture down into the semi-dry bed of a reservoir.

"Good shortcut," Yusei remarks, squinting up at the light reflecting off of the concrete around us. "How far are we from Saiga's place?"

"Not far. Straight up that way and around the corner," Himuro tells him.

"Perfect. I really don't feel like beating reporters away from me today. Or ever."

We stay in single file, following Himuro, Yusei and I rolling our duel runners along the thin line of concrete splitting the waterway in two.

When we get out into an alleyway up above the waterway, I recognize where we are. The tattoo parlor is only a couple blocks from here—and I feel some solace in knowing that there's a place I actually recognize.

The apartment we cram into is off of the main stretch of road, but the garage entrance is in a back alley. I follow Yusei back past garbage cans and wrought iron fire escapes, into the garage to prop Hiraeth up a couple feet away from his sleek red duel runner.

Inside, the flat is small, not horribly cramped, and covered in forest green wallpaper. Yanagi and Himuro are at the table in, presumably, the kitchen, and Yanagi is scribbling on a piece of paper. After a second of watching him draw, I realize that it looks sort of like a lindwurm—a dragon curled up into the shape of a ring.

"This is what we're dealing with," Yanagi says. "The Aztecs told of a dragon deity that protected them and their earliest predecessors, the People of the Stars. According to their legends, a being called the Crimson Dragon split its power apart and sealed it into five humans chosen by fate to guard the world from a spectacular evil."

"Not magic, then," I breathe. " _Gods_."

"You mean to tell us," Himuro says slowly, "that the huge red fire-thing that appeared during Yusei and Atlas' duel was a god?"

"Precisely. When all five Signers gather, it's said that the Dragon will come to claim them."

"Excuse my French, pops, but _fuck that_."

"What about the marks?" Ruka presses. "Can you tell us more about them?"

"Their people were born with the power or chosen—and called 'Signers' after the fact that they bore the Sign of the Dragon." Yanagi holds up his drawing. It's actually fairly detailed, for such a quick scribble. "This is what the dragon's symbol looked like when I saw it, and it's supposed to have all five marks inscribed in it."

"That one is mine," Yusei says; I follow his finger to the pointed sort-of shape on one side of the dragon. The tribal shape I remember standing out in red against his skin. "It looks like the tail."

"This one's mine," Ruka adds, pointing at one of the claws. She pushes back her sleeve to compare it. It doesn't look like my tattoos, like ink bled into skin in smooth, soft lines. Against her arm, it almost looks like a brand; sort of like the mark on Yusei's face, like it was carved into her and it stands as the redness of exposed muscle tissue.

"That one's—Aki's," I say softly. I point at the long, graceful shape of the claw on the tail end of the dragon drawing. "I've only seen it glow once or twice." I don't remember it looking like as deep of a brand as Ruka's.

"Jack had the wings," Yusei recalls. "Which means the one we're missing is the head."

"But the Dragon showed up during that duel," Ruka points out. "There were only four of us there—in the stadium and in the vision we had."

"If the Dragon appeared, is it safe to assume that the fifth Signer was nearby?" Himuro asks.

"Oh, absolutely," Yanagi remarks. "There's no denying that the fifth Signer had to be at least in the vicinity of the Circuit."

"Okay," Yusei says, "But where were they?"

Everyone in the room cuts their eyes to him.

"Yusei has a point," Ruka remarks. "Wouldn't the fifth Signer have been in the vision with us? And we've pretty much all agreed that Goodwin invited us all just to confirm that we were Signers… so wouldn't he have invited that fifth person, too?"

"Maybe he doesn't know the fifth person!" Rua attempts.

"Somehow I find that very hard to believe," Yusei tells him.

"Maybe it's _me_!" Rua bursts out.

Ruka shoots him a look. "It's not you."

"You don't know that!" He starts rubbing furiously at his arm, like he can somehow make a mark like Ruka's appear on his skin. Himuro begins to hypothesize with Yanagi about everything they witnessed during the tournament that seemed "out of place." Yusei has his eyes pinned on the drawing of the Crimson Dragon on the table. His face looks… unnerved, or confused, or something. I get lost in the sounds, Ruka and Rua arguing and Himuro's conversation with Yanagi, and all of the things I'm trying to remember from the past few hours.

Something in the air shifts, like a breeze that blows through my bones. I don't know what I'm detecting, and then Ruka suddenly crumples. Yanagi dives forward and catches her, but she's already trying to get herself back onto her feet.

"Ruka?" Rua makes a beeline for her, abandoning his search for a birthmark. " _Ruka_?"

"I'm fine," she croaks. "Just tired. I'm okay, I promise."

"You should lie down," I say breathlessly. What was that I felt?

"Maybe we need to just take it easy," Yusei suggests. "It's been a really long afternoon for all of us."

"No more mythology for today," Himuro agrees.

Everyone sort of splits off after that. Rua and Yanagi take Ruka to another room, insisting that she needs to lie down, and Yusei goes straight for the garage; probably to check up on his duel runner. I'm alone in the living room with Himuro for a second, before he goes off into another room, too, to do who-knows-what.

I sit there in the silence, staring at the sketch Yanagi made. Categorizing the time and the things I've heard today.

What was it Goodwin said to me about _marks_?


	11. Midnight

It's nice to be in Daimon again, and for longer than a few hours. My only protest is that it's within walking distance of Arcadia; it makes me scared to go outside. What if Divine is looking for me?

I can't help thinking about it—everyone I left behind. How angry is Divine? Has he hurt Seria for letting me go? What is Aki doing, did I hurt her feelings? Is she doing okay in the aftermath of her duels?

I try to shove the thoughts out of my head as I flick through the buttons below Hiraeth's duel screen. Right now, I think there are worse things to worry about. Dragons and gods and cities in flames. I'm distracting myself by matching every button and icon on Hiraeth that I can to what I recognize from the manuals and encyclopedias Seria used to bring me.

I'm still processing it all. This day, the duel runner, and me… _Free_ , at last.

"Can't sleep?"

I flinch at the voice. "No. Tried. I tossed and turned for an hour before I came down here."

"Sorry for startling you." Yusei stops on the other side of Hiraeth and looks over it for a second. "Too much excitement?"

"It doesn't feel real," I confess. "Not that I'm out. Not that… that there's somebody that knows who I am, even if I don't."

"It'll be a reunion for the books, that's for sure. Not to be morbid, but most of us were convinced that you were dead." His eyes are still on Hiraeth. "You know, when you said you were learning to ride, I didn't expect you to show up with a duel runner already in tow."

"Honestly, me neither," I tell him. "It was a parting gift from one of my friends in the Movement."

"Nice of them."

"They were… a lot better to me than I deserve."

"Why do you do that?"

I crane my neck up to look at him. "What?"

"You're self-deprecating. Like you think that everything that's happened to you thus far, you've deserved. I doubt that's even close to being true."

"You don't know the first thing about 'everything that's happened to me thus far'," I say.

"Maybe I don't," he says, his voice lowering, "but I've seen the bruises you're trying to hide."

"Don't."

"I've been electrocuted before, C. I know what it—"

" _Don't_ ," I say, a little stronger. " _Please_."

His mouth becomes a displeased line. "No one deserves that. _Whatever_ it was."

"If I didn't do half the things I did while in Arcadia, I wouldn't have garnered the response that I did. There are plenty of risks I took that I shouldn't have."

"Nothing worth doing," he responds, "is without risk."

I turn my eyes back to Hiraeth.

"What are you doing down here, anyways?"

"I couldn't sleep," I repeat. "And I don't know all about this thing, so I just kind of want to tinker with it."

"' _Tinker_ '?"

"It's just… a thing I do," I say. "When I started getting more free time, my friend in the Movement brought me books about all sorts of things. And I usually can't pay attention unless I'm fiddling with something. So I just… I take things apart. Put them back together. Build new things. Write it all down…"

"You build things?" He asks.

"I built a duel simulator out of alarm clocks, half a duel disk, and some hard drive pieces. I have the schematic… um, somewhere. I have my notebooks packed away. That's the last thing I built, anyways…"

"That's… that's actually really impressive."

"I've been doing it for as long as I can remember," I mumble. "It's not a huge deal."

"You're being self-deprecating again." He sinks to the floor next to the runner. "May I? I want to show you something."

"Okay."

Suddenly one of the side panels on Hiraeth disengages; Yusei sets it on the concrete. "Come look at this with me."

I slip off of the driver's seat to kneel next to him. It's a mess of metal and bolts and even some wires…

"It runs like a car, if you're familiar with how that works," he says. " _This_ is the bottom of the engine. The top of it sits up—" he reaches toward where the screen is, "— _here_ , behind the interface wiring. Sort of underneath the disk pedestal." I follow his finger as it moves from metal piece to metal piece. "That box to the right of it is the radiator, and the track chain for the wheels runs up behind _here_. The exhaust pipe runs out _that_ way."

"It… it doesn't sound complicated at all."

"Not really, when you break it down. The hard part is all of the wiring; you have to dodge all of the elements that make it drive and figure out where you're going to fill in all of the elements that make it duel. The engine, though, doesn't regulate gas. It regulates energy in its own sort of internal battery over _here_."

"But it doesn't need to be changed or charged."

"No, the energy regulates in a loop. If the battery or a part of it malfunctions, then obviously you replace it, but the energy output is the same either way. Parts of that energy also get siphoned to power the interface and connect to a duel disk if it gets placed in the pedestal."

"It's the same basic principle as literally combining a duel disk with a motorcycle," I say.

"Pretty much. And, like a car with a central computer or a navigation system or whatever, it takes a CPU to streamline all of its programming."

"I thought it would be more complicated than that," I admit.

"So did I when I started building mine. The hardest part was finding materials that weren't… you know, _trash_."

Right. He mentioned scavenging. For parts, for cards…

I train my eyes on his face. "What's Satellite like?"

"What's it _like_?" He runs a hand through his hair. "...not like Neo Domino, that's for sure."

"But tell me about it."

"It's… smaller than Neo Domino. Not livable in most areas. In some places, there's so much rubble that it's impossible to walk on flat ground, let alone take a duel runner anywhere."

"What happened to it?" I ask.

"The stories say that there was an earthquake," he answers. "It was so big that it cut us off from the mainland, and the tsunami that came after it basically ruined half of the sector. Satellite used to be part of Neo Domino, and now it's an island. The Bureau uses it as a marooning rock for all of their captured criminals, so everyone who was born there or stuck there after the separation is pretty much on their own without Bureau oversight."

"That's awful."

"Not the ideal place to grow up," he admits, "but it's home. Everyone I care about is there."

"...do you have family there?"

He exhales. "Not biologically."

"Your mom and dad aren't around?"

"I never knew my parents," he says. "They died when I was a kid, I think. I've always assumed it happened in the earthquake. You… you and I both, actually, went through that, along with a bunch of other Satellite kids."

"Oh," I whisper. It takes me a second to muster a reply. "And… and the Bureau hasn't done anything to help? All those kids who—who lost their parents?"

Yusei scoffs. "They've got better things to do. _Presumably_."

"...why would the Bureau send criminals there?"

"I don't know. To avoid overcrowding the Detention Center, maybe? That's their prison. But everyone who goes in gets marked, and if the offense is major enough, the person gets sentenced to Satellite. Otherwise, they get released into the city after they do their time."

"'Marked'?" I ask.

"Marked," he repeats; he turns his cheek and taps the yellow mark cutting down his face.

I swallow. "You're—a _criminal_?"

The light in here only barely hits his face, so I can't see his expression all that well, but I could swear he's rolling his eyes. "And here I thought we were starting to be pretty okay friends."

Part of me can't believe that I've never known, never asked, what the yellow marks meant. I don't know what I thought they were, but I never— _never_ questioned them. They weren't an important detail, just interesting to look at. Both Himuro and Yanagi have one… people all over Daimon have them. Inoue has one. How did I never know that the string connecting them all was a criminal background?

" _What_ did you _do_?" I hear myself ask.

"I could really do _without_ you judging me."

"What does that even—if you murdered someone, _I'm going to judge you_!"

"Calm down. I didn't _murder_ anyone," he retorts. "I didn't do _anything_."

"So why—why do you…"

"You know who Jack Atlas is, right?" He leans his chin on his hand. "Tall, blonde, _extremely_ punchable face?"

"He's… a turbo duelist…? The one you beat out for the Fortune Cup title?"

"We used to be friends," he says. "Actually, all three of us used to be friends. Before you vanished, I mean. Jack and I were pretty close as kids, and a few years back he kept getting more and more distant. My other friends and I started building a duel runner after we figured out how to intercept broadcasts from the Memorial Circuit. Then Jack just… _took_ it."

"He _stole_ your duel runner?" I marvel.

"Actually, he threatened the life of one of my friends, and _then_ took both my duel runner and my best card. A year later, he was Director Goodwin's star duelist. I needed to settle that score. So I built the duel runner I have now, and I went through the wringer to get here to the city. Jack broke into the Memorial Circuit and had me follow him, and I was set to duel him—to get my card back, at the very least—and he called Security on me. He said that I'd assaulted him, or something, and I wasn't in any city records since I'm a citizen of Satellite and not Neo Domino, so they locked me up. And all I got for all of it was this lousy mark."

"You beat him in the Fortune Cup, though," I say softly. "Doesn't that count for something?"

"Maybe." He sighs. "I don't know. It doesn't change what he put me through. What he put my friends through. What he left me with. It's something when somebody betrays you, but it's something _big_ when that somebody is your _friend_."

"I'm sorry."

"The worst part is the mark. I never really understood what the significance of it beyond prisoner identification was until now." He nods at me. "Every time someone sees it, they judge me. Before they even know me, they pin me as a criminal for it. They don't even care what I did, they just know that they want nothing to do with me."

"I'm sorry," I repeat. "I shouldn't have been so accusatory toward you."

"That's all right," he exhales. " _I_ should apologize. I overshare when I'm tired."

"It's okay," I say. "I asked the question. And we're friends, anyways. Right?"

"Of course." He suddenly notices the missing panel on Hiraeth and picks it up to fit it back into place. "Tell me about you. About Arcadia, or I guess tell me about it if there was something bearable there."

"There's not really a lot to tell," I admit. "It feels like I forget more and more every day—like I can never keep a handle on my memories, even the more recent ones. All I retain is information."

"What does that mean?"

"Things I read in books. Details. Math and science and word pronunciations and things that I can just... I don't know, _memorize_ somehow. But it's like the tradeoff is that I can barely even remember what I ate yesterday. Any of those memories that I do have are… just bursts. Here and there. Random times, random places. I know who I am and what I'm capable of, but… loosely."

" _Loosely_?"

"My name isn't even mine. Divine gave it to me—because he said I had no name when he found me."

"Cipher," he says. "I remember. But you don't use it."

"I don't like it," I tell him. "One of the little bursts I have is that, when I was younger, I thought it sounded cool. It was unique to me; nobody else could say that they were named 'Cipher'."

"What happened?"

"I found out what it meant," I say. "And from then on I wanted everyone to call me C."

"...got it."

"Divine never would," I tell him. "Everyone called me C, even Aki. I was always _Cipher_ to Divine, though. I never wanted to ask him to call me what I preferred."

"What's his story?" Yusei asks. "If you're comfortable telling it, that is."

"I don't… _know_ ," I admit. "My friend in the Movement, my teacher Seria, grew up with him. She said that he had some trauma, some incident that made him hate anyone who wasn't a psychic. He started the Movement only a few years before I was brought in, but it's never been large. It's always been very exclusive, no more than thirty or forty people for as long as I've been there. I was surprised when he tried to make it public for the Fortune Cup."

"Did he raise you? Or, eight years of you?"

"More or less. I think I called him 'Father' for a little while. He was always abrasive, never very patient, and he yelled sometimes… but he taught me a lot, about dueling and about all sorts of other things. Sensible things, I guess, like reading and writing."

"We all learned to read and write from our caretaker in Satellite," Yusei tells me. "You really did forget everything, then, if Divine had to teach you to read again."

"...I don't know what happened to me," I say. "Maybe I never will. It used to rip me up, but… I don't know. I can't go back to any of it."

"I get it," he replies. "Sometimes I want to backtrack, but I figure I'm better where I am. And, if I'm not right now, maybe I will be tomorrow."

It's a pretty sentiment. I wonder if it's something I can afford now—at least, now that tomorrow doesn't land me in the Movement or knee deep in corporeal punishment.

"...do you remember when I told you yesterday that I didn't remember anything?" I ask.

"And about thirty seconds ago when you said you had bits and pieces?" He says.

"I remember… _one_ thing, and it's blurry, but I have it. It's the furthest back that I can remember," I reply.

"Tell me," he responds.

"They're feelings, mostly. I remember being afraid. And cold. It was pitch dark and raining, and there was thunder—someone had wrapped me in a big coat to try and keep me dry. That's it, though."

"It's something. Maybe you don't know what it's from, but it is something."

"That's fair." I shift a little and stretch my cramped, half-numb legs out. "Hey. Can you tell me the story?"

He doesn't even question it. "Which?"

"When I… _left_. I guess."

He cocks his head toward me. I can see his eyes glittering in the low light. "We lived with this woman named Martha—big brown eyes, dark hair in braids, voice like a lullaby. Every kid in the orphanage would go silent when she talked. She took in everyone she could find who'd been orphaned in the split, and she raised us all."

A mother. I had… I _did_ have a mother. Or close to one.

"Her house was on the edge of Satellite, surrounded by all these trees that had grown up around us in the aftermath of the disaster… it was a kind of pretty, quaint little place. Most of the first generation Satellite kids grew up in that area, I think. But _we_ —you, me, your brother, Crow, and Jack—would usually get up and scramble out to the scrap heaps not too far away and look for cards."

"What, like dueling cards?"

"Yeah. Cards served as currency until the Bureau figured out a way to cross the sound and establish a Satellite headquarters and a way to circulate money. You dueled for things, and if you won, you got what you needed, or you just traded cards. So the five of us would go scrounging for cards and try to get things Martha needed, or we would just go dueling for the heck of it."

Divine rarely ever let me touch cards because I'm not a Physicalizer… it's almost hard to believe that I grew up with them.

"So, like we usually did, we got up one morning and went looking for cards. Shared what we found, showed Martha… went out and dueled with some of the other local kids or people that weren't into mooching cards off of children. It was getting dark, and we were gathering each other up to go home. Crow found your cards. Martha came out to get us and yelled at us for a long time for staying out so late. Then she was out all night, with some of the adults who lived close to the orphanage, looking for you. We all made flyers, we spent days asking everyone we could if they'd seen you… but you were just gone. Like you'd just vanished into thin air."

Just like that. Divine took me just like _that_. So easily.

"Your brother didn't come out of his room for a week, and when Martha finally got him out, he promised he was never going to pick up any cards again." Yusei leans against Hiraeth a little. "He was never really the same after that. I'll admit I have no idea how he'll react when he sees you."

"How surreal," I murmur.

"Do you remember anything else? From then?"

"No," I admit. "Nothing besides the storm. You would think I'd remember something, given how old I was, but… it's all just gone. The only thing I'm sure of is Arcadia."

"I don't know for sure what he did to you," Yusei says, and I know he's talking about Divine, "but I'm going to make sure it never happens again. And, when we get back to Satellite, something tells me that it won't just be me who feels that way."

"...thank you."

"You're welcome."

We sit there in silence for what feels like a very long time, and I'm leaning my head against Hiraeth and trying to remember what its rumble sounded like underneath me.

When it gets light out, I think I'll try to take a few laps somewhere.

At some point, I murmur, "Yusei?"

"Hm?" He sounds half-asleep.

"What was my name? Before?"

I must have had one—Divine took it from me, knowingly or unknowingly, and I feel like it's only fair that I know what it is. That I know the person I was on, at least, a first-name basis.

He's losing focus and the only other sounds are the metal and the wood in the garage creaking as they settle into the witching hour—silence and something like a lullaby to the mechanic beside me, who has to have fallen asleep to settling sounds too many times before.

But he tells me.


	12. Young Gun

When I wake up, I can smell coffee. It's a familiar smell, but not so much for me to wake up to. It takes me a second to remember exactly where I am.

I roll over and almost tumble off of a sofa I don't remember falling asleep on, and my head's half covered by a blanket, or something like it, that smells a little like gasoline. I sit up, looking around at the peeling wallpaper, the shelves, and open-faced cabinets along the walls full of clutter and pull the blanket around my shoulders—only to figure that it isn't a blanket.

It's the beaten, dusty blue coat that Yusei wears, with the black trim and the orange shoulder pads. How did it get here? How did _I_ get it?

I half-stumble toward the next room, where the coffee-smell is coming from, in search of (hopefully) Yusei to fill in a few of the blanks.

He's leaning against the kitchenette with a chipped white coffee mug in one hand. He turns toward me when he hears me and frowns. "You're not that shorter than me. That shouldn't be that big on you. Were they running low on food at the Movement?"

"I—why do I have this?" I ask. "And… why do you look so awful?"

"Thanks, I appreciate it."

"No, that's not what I meant, you just… Did you sleep at all last night?"

"After we dozed off in the garage, I woke up to my mark hurting," he answers. "There was someone outside and..." he sets his mug down and rubs at his eyes. "He wanted a duel. I guess. It was really strange. He had a mark, too, and he called himself a 'Dark Signer'. All of the duel damage was real. But when it was over, he couldn't remember a thing. Like he was under a spell."

"That is strange," I say.

"Anyways, when I got back in, you were still out in the garage, so I put you on the couch, and I couldn't find any blankets, so I just gave you that." He says it like it's the most anticlimactic thing ever. "Coffee?"

I blink at him. "I… okay… what time is it?"

"A little before eleven. I don't know if anyone else is awake yet. You're the first one who's come in here."

"I just smelled the coffee…"

"That's a perfectly reasonable motivation for getting up." He shuffles through one of the cabinets and produces another mug, then reaches for the pot of coffee by the sink. "I use it all the time."

"Thank you," I say as he passes it to me. I take a long drink from my cup, and the coffee is much more bitter than I expected, but it warms me all the way down to the tips of my toes. "So… what happens today?"

"I'm not sure yet," he replies. "I'm concerned for my friends back in Satellite. Goodwin promised he would release them once the tournament was over, and I sent someone to find them, but how do I know they've been let go? And there's all of this… _Signer_ business to worry about."

"You sound like you're thinking about heading straight back to Satellite."

"Do you have an issue with us going home?" He retorts. "I thought that was the plan. 'S'cuse my honesty, but this city sucks."

There's that word again; _home_. "I don't have an issue. You're calling the shots, here, I just want to make sure I have all your intentions straight."

"What I really need is to sit down with Goodwin and _make_ him talk to me. That guy dances around answering questions in the shadiest way possible."

I know what he means, but I decide against bringing up my conversation with Goodwin until I'm sure it's important. Of course I'm gonna tell him eventually; right now, I'm still sorting it all out in my head, but I'm almost positive that the whole thing was Goodwin testing what I know. Testing if I'm involved in whatever he's obviously trying to entrap Yusei, Ruka, Aki, and Jack Atlas into.

If _I_ plan on getting myself involved.

"Yusei," I say, "do you want me involved?"

"What?" He asks.

"This Signer thing—everything that's happening around you right now is sporting a big glowing 'out of human-league' sign. I know that you and the others are going to have to deal with it one way or another—"

"Are you asking for my _opinion_?"

"I'm _asking_ ," I tell him, "if I'm allowed to help. Or… be of whatever help I can, I guess."

He sets his mug down. "Maybe give me your reasoning."

"Whether or not I remember it, Satellite used to be my home. If it's going up in flames, if people are going to get hurt, I don't want to watch it happen."

"Now that you're out of Arcadia, you're getting a handle on your own agency," he says. "That's good."

"If Satellite is the only home I have," I reply, "then I don't want to lose it."

He stares at me.

"I have a brother and a caretaker in Satellite that I don't want to lose before I even meet them."

"Okay," he says. "But if I see it get too dangerous, I'm going to ask you to step away from the situation."

"You seem like you like to do everything by yourself," I say. "If you decide what constitutes as 'too dangerous,' something tells me that I won't get to help at all. That's a no deal."

"Then you're not coming. I'm dropping you off at Martha's place and I'll see you when I see you."

A cabinet door flies open and smacks against a wall with a horrible thudding noise. My hand flies to my stabilizer, like touching it will remind whatever is in me that it needs to keep quiet.

"Do all psychics flare up with their tempers?" He asks coolly.

"Do you _want_ to find out?"

"I'm curious, but I'd rather not break an apartment that isn't mine."

I stand there staring at him for a moment, feeling like I'm on one side of a standoff. He has a poker face like a troublemaker—like a kid wandering into nowhere with his hands in his pockets, pretending he knows where he's going.

"How about _this_?" I enunciate. "Your 'too dangerous' is whatever makes that mark glow. Whenever that might be, whatever it might be… when you light up, I back away. Everything else, everything _human_ , you let me help. Does that sound like a deal?"

"And you could handle that? Anything else that's _human_?"

"Look, I'm not made of glass."

"Can you duel?"

"I have a deck—I haven't used it yet, but I have one."

"Okay, so I'm going to ask that question again. _Can_ you duel?"

"If your question is if I'm a good duelist," I say, "I'm rusty. I know the deck I have, though."

"How well?"

"Well enough. I told you. My memories leave me, but little details stick around," I say. "I can't tell you my birthday, but I know the atomic weight of silver. Stuff like that. It's been a few years, but I know how to throw around a Psychic deck."

"All right, I'll take your word for it." He looks at me over the lip of his cup while he takes another drink. "It's February 10th, by the way."

"What?"

"Your birthday. It's February 10th."

I always celebrated it with Seria on the first of January—the beginning of a new year. Somewhere in the time that had passed, I knew I'd gotten older. I just didn't know when. It was something Divine never knew. Or never told me. "Thank you."

"Mmhm."

"...so, we're set, then? We have a deal?"

"Seems that way. We'll do what we can, and if the others happen to join us, great."

"We're not… going to get Aki and Jack?"

"Considering I just stripped Jack of his title and possibly also dislocated his shoulder, I think it'd be a good idea for me to steer clear of him for as long as I possibly can. Also, I've yet to receive an apology or anything like it from him, so Jack's the furthest thing from what I care about right now." He goes to wash his cup out in the sink. "And, I don't think you mean for it, but it sounds like you're asking if we're going to _physically_ go get Aki. You're fooling yourself if you think I'm taking you anywhere near Arcadia."

"Oh," I murmur. "Right."

"I don't necessarily want to take Ruka to Satellite. Not unless I have to, even if she is the same as me. I want to find out what's really going on before I try to involve anyone else."

"Is that a good idea?" I ask. "Us going alone?"

"I have no clue," he says. "I'm planning on figuring it out when we arrive. I've got friends, and I grew up there, so it's not like we're going in completely blind."

"Okay. I'm going to trust you on this."

"Good, I'm glad. I don't think we'd get anything done if we didn't trust each other at least a little."

"That's fair."

I stand with him in silence, taking drinks of my coffee, and after a while the pleasant silence is broken by Himuro sauntering in, feet dragging and shoes scraping against the floor.

"Mornin'." Himuro scans me, taking in Yusei's jacket around my shoulders, then says, "Your _friend_ , Yusei? Or your _girl_ friend?"

Yusei snaps back at him before I can even try to think of something to say. "Yes, Himuro, I'm dating someone I assumed was _dead_ for eight years, right in the middle of a possible crisis where all my friends might die and all I can do about it at the moment is start _glowing_."

"All right, _Happy_ , I was just pokin' at you."

"Don't tease him, he's tired and touchy," I say. In an effort to avoid any more _pokes_ from anyone else, I slide Yusei's jacket off and set it on the counter.

"Oh, I got that," Himuro scoffs. "Didn't get your beauty sleep, I take it?"

"As long as we're going to keep joking about it," Yusei remarks, "no, I did not, I was busy trying to figure out why there was a possessed teenager in a bathrobe outside of the apartment last night. Somebody calling himself a _Dark_ Signer."

"That's… new."

"Whatever you want to call it. Have you gotten anything from Saiga yet?"

"No, but I haven't checked since last night."

"All right. I think C and I are going to go see what we can do."

"You're going back to Satellite?"

Yusei, Himuro, and I swivel around to see Rua in the kitchen threshold. I can see a drowsy-looking Ruka coming down the hall after him.

"I have to," Yusei says, and I notice that his tone is considerably softer. I figure he must know when he can afford to be borderline petulant. Or to whom.

"We should stick together," Ruka says softly, meeting her brother in the doorway. "Isn't that what you said before?"

"I won't be gone forever," Yusei tells her. "I have to make sure my friends are all right. And maybe when I'm there I can figure out what that vision meant."

Ruka doesn't look satisfied with that answer, but she doesn't say anything else.

Then, as if to complete the electric, almost standoffish feeling of this morning, a bleary-eyed Yanagi comes shuffling in behind Rua and Ruka and says, "Yusei? You might want to come look at this."

Yusei trails first after him, and the rest of us follow the two of them. Probably out of curiosity. I, for one, want to know what Yanagi wants him to see.

We go into the spare room, and Yanagi leads Yusei to the window half-shrouded by a ratty green curtain. Himuro, who's the tallest of all of us, gets close enough to look up over Yusei's head.

"Oh, great," Himuro laughs humorlessly. "Security. Just what we need."

"Why are they here?" Ruka murmurs.

"We are in the underground district," I say. "Crime and stuff."

" _Crime and stuff_ ," Yusei repeats absentmindedly.

I get on my toes to try and peer up over his shoulder. There's a group of half a dozen people in teal Security uniforms gathered near the front entrance to the building, staring off in different places. It does seem odd that so many of them are here.

One of them in front, a big burly man with dark hair, takes what I think is a bullhorn from a Security who seems to be coming back from a squad car. It screeches as the Security turns it on, and his voice blasts, loud and crackly, against the side of the building. " _COME OUT FUDO, WE KNOW YOU'RE IN THERE_!"

"Hey, wow, I am popular," Yusei retorts. "This is already annoying."

"They're here for you?" I exclaim. What the Security shouted was a name I don't recognize; it must be his family name?

"How did they even find us?" Rua complains.

"That guy in the front? His name's Ushio." Yusei points to the dark-haired Security with the bullhorn. "He's a Satellite patrolman. I'm not surprised he's here, he's been on my back for years."

" _COME ON_!" Ushio's bullhorn crackles. " _THE CITY'S NO PLACE FOR SATELLITES, YOU CAN'T HIDE FOREVER_!"

"This is cruddy timing," Himuro remarks.

"Eh, maybe not, now that I think about it," Yusei tells him. He shoulders away from the window. "Come on, C."

"What's the plan?" I say, trailing after him.

"Ushio can probably take us straight to Goodwin—and Goodwin owes me, anyways, so he's probably the quickest way back to Satellite." We reach the kitchen, and Yusei grabs his jacket off of the counter before we both head into the garage. There, I slide my jacket on, and Yusei clips into his wrist dealer. I'm trying to figure out how we're going to play this. If Yusei is _actually_ going to demand something of a Bureau officer.

"What are we supposed to do?" I ask as I strap a knee pad on.

"I can handle Ushio," he replies. "Just don't let him intimidate you. He's all bark and no bite."

"...okay. If you say so."

I clip on my own wrist dealer, and then Yusei shoves the garage door open. Together, we move down the alleyway and out into the front of the apartment building. The front Security, Ushio, lowers his bullhorn and scowls when he sees us.

"Well," Ushio says in this gravelly, patronizing voice, "It's about time you—"

"Yeah, I don't care," Yusei interrupts. "You can take me to see Director Goodwin, can't you?"

Ushio stands there for a second, his mouth half-agape. "What… What did you just say to me, Satellite trash?!"

"You've way overused the classist insults. I asked if you could take me to Goodwin."

Ushio shoves his bullhorn into the hands of another Security and advances toward Yusei, hand outstretched like he's going to try to grab Yusei by the collar. I take an involuntary step in their direction, my stomach jumping, trying not to forget what Yusei said about 'being able to handle it'.

Yusei, though, catches Ushio's wrist almost effortlessly. His expression doesn't even change.

"Maybe I wasn't clear," Yusei tells him. "So I'm going to stop _asking_. You lot are _going_ to take me and my friend to Goodwin, understand?" He tosses Ushio's hand away, looks over his shoulder to me, and inclines his head for me to follow him.

Ushio stands there, at a loss for words, and I kind of am too, but I shuffle after Yusei, toward one of the squad cars. We climb into the back of it together, and Yusei stares absentmindedly out the window at the Security officers, who look to be extremely confused.

"Easy as that," Yusei says, half under his breath. "They do everything they do on the basis of fear, only. If you haven't done anything wrong, there's nothing to be afraid of."

"That was… kind of solo badass," I mutter.

That makes him laugh.

"What was that about classism?" I ask.

"City people think that Satellite is exclusively full of the city's criminals, not that there are people living there that they've effectively trapped in a disaster area via their own ignorance. It's safer for them to assume that we're all criminals to preserve their flimsy sense of morality."

"Oh." I peer out my window and see Ushio talking, or it looks more like shouting, at a few of the officers around him.

"Hang on." Yusei reaches over me and rolls my window down, then shouts, "Come on Ushio, don't waste my time!"

"You… You...!"

"I don't want to be in this car any more than you want me to be! Hurry it up!"

He rolls the window back up, and I say, "How… do you know each other, again?"

"He was a patrolman in Satellite, and he always used to try and have me arrested for building my duel runner," he answers, "since turbo dueling is illegal in Satellite and all."

"Is _anything_ legal in Satellite?"

"Working," he retorts. "The sector's all full of factories that manufacture exports to the city, even Satellite-born people are forced to work in them because there's not much else to do to sustain yourself. And no Satellite in their right mind would want to work for the Bureau, even if they were allowed to, so all of the Securities are the same brand of Satellite-hating meatheads that'll arrest you for breathing in their general direction." He tilts his head toward me. "Sorry if I'm making you less and less enthusiastic about going back."

"...It doesn't sound worse than the city, frankly."

"Really? That's interesting, coming from someone who practically grew up _here_."

"I've only seen a little bit of the city," I tell him. "Just Daimon. I started sneaking out maybe a year ago, and only for a few hours at a time."

"I assume that's where you got the illegal tattoos from."

"They're not illegal if no one knows they are," I say.

"That's fair," he chuckles.

"What is anyone going to do?" I remark. "We're already in the backseat of a Security squad car."

"Speaking of which, if someone doesn't get in the driver's seat soon, I'm driving this thing to the Bureau Headquarters by myself."

"You know how to drive?"

"Absolutely not. But we'd probably make it there faster than it's taking these Securities to get a clue." He looks at me. "What made you decide on tattoos? Of all the things you could sneak out to do, why get tattoos? They're the least easy thing to hide, and they cost money you might have been able to use to leave."

"Even if I did gather up enough money to sustain myself, like I said, the first time I ever remember going outside was around a year ago," I confess. "I'm lost on how to take care of myself, all I know how to do is take things apart and memorize words. No matter how much money I could get, it didn't change the fact that I didn't know anybody and I didn't have anywhere else to go."

"I really was your out, then," he sighs. "Lucky that you came to the Circuit that day."

"As for the tattoos… I don't know. There's permanence in them. Divine could punish me for going outside, but the tattoos were something he could never take away from me. He never moved to get them removed from me or anything, maybe because he didn't care, or… or I don't know. So I just kept getting them. It's whatever. Even when I was back in Arcadia, I could look at them and know that I'd been outside at least once. I'd tasted at _least_ a day out in the world."

"Well, now you get more days," he says. "As many as you want."

"...you know, I was serious when I said that first day that I owed you for this."

"You don't owe me anything, C."

"You didn't have to talk to me at all, Yusei. Or offer to take me to Satellite. You could've just let me keep drowning."

"I know it's only day two or three that we've known each other," he says, "but looking the other way isn't how I operate. Whether or not I knew you before this, whether or not you came looking for me, I saw you get dragged away by Arcadia, and if I had seen you after that, I would have offered to get you out anyways." He crosses his arms. "I tried that with Aki, too."

"You… you did _what_?" I sputter.

"I think the sadism thing is a front for her. I think Arcadia is as bad for her as it was for you, and I tried to tell her that when we dueled—that she needs to depend on herself for the decisions she makes. I don't know if I got through to her, but I hope I at least made her think. She seems to have a lot going on."

"...to tell you the truth, I never knew what was real and what wasn't with her. I knew a different Aki than the one who was out there at the Fortune Cup. All I hope is that I didn't hurt her by leaving."

"I think if she really cared about you, she would understand. She couldn't have been blind to what you were experiencing."

"No," I admit. "But she never acknowledged it."

"That's her problem, then." Yusei glances up and over me. "Well it's about goddamned time."

A Security officer wrenches open the door on the driver's side and heaves a monumental sigh as he swings himself in behind the wheel. "Kid, you've got some real nerve talking to an officer the way you did."

"Thanks for letting me know," Yusei remarks. The Security angles his rear view mirror toward us, so that I can see his eyes. This isn't Ushio Yusei is talking to, and I can't help but imagine the consequences we'd both get tied up in if Yusei mouths off to another Security. So I smack him in the shoulder hard enough that it makes a sound, and he recoils.

The Security chuckles. "At least your pal knows that you should respect your damn authorities."

Yusei shoots me a flat look. I can almost hear the _kissass_ accusation in it, and when I look back at the Security's eyes in the mirror, they're crinkled like he's wearing a smug smile. I wish I could tell Yusei that he needs to think about consequences, even keeping in mind how awful he says Securities are to Satellites. So I'm gonna tread carefully.

"A real _authority_ knows not to lord their power over others for the sake of fear," I say. "Especially not the new King of Turbo Duels. If you wouldn't mind, _sir_ , are we going to see Director Goodwin or aren't we?"

I glance sideways at Yusei, who looks to be rolling his eyes. But he's also almost smiling.

The Security starts the car wordlessly, and I sit in uncomfortable silence, looking between Yusei, the driver, and the view out the window as we start down the road. In the distance, I can see Arcadia with its shiny glass windows, looming over Daimon to the west like a great concrete god.

That's when I stop looking out the window.


	13. Starlet

The car brings us to the Bureau headquarters after sitting in traffic on the causeway for what felt like hours. Yusei's theory is that our escorts went out of their way to be as slow as humanly possible. The sun is overhead by the time we reach the imposing grey tower the Bureau uses as their headquarters.

Four cars came to get Yusei from Daimon, and all four of them park in a way that pretty much boxes us in toward the front door.

"Stay close," he mutters as we slide out of the backseat. My knees crack from sitting down for so long when I stand. Yusei and I get ushered forward, toward the door, until we're barricaded in beside each other by a few of the officers.

"Is there a reason for this?" Yusei retorts.

"You want to get run over by press, kid, be my guest," Ushio snaps. "This is the only nice thing I'm ever going to do for you, and it's only because I got ordered to do it."

Ordered? Who ordered it? Does Goodwin already know we're coming?

The Securities corral us inside and upstairs, where they make us walk through metal detectors to make sure that we're not 'carrying anything dangerous.' My stabilizer sets something off, so I have to take it off and stand with my arms out while a lady in the teal Security uniform waves a long wand-looking thing over both of my arms. Yusei gets to go through the same after his belt buckle sets the detector off.

After that, we take an elevator up too many floors for me to count; I can see the ground getting farther and farther away from us through the window out the back of it. Then, when we get out, Ushio drops us off in some empty room that almost looks like a boardroom—and I hear the deadbolt click as it locks us inside.

"They just locked us in here?" Yusei plops down in a chair at one end of the conference table. "Unbelievable."

"What did you expect?" I say. "You kind of just demanded a personal meeting with the most important political figure in Neo Domino City, he's probably preoccupied."

"Goodwin makes time for things he thinks are important," Yusei scoffs. "And, if he really wants me to keep doing whatever the hell he wants, he's going to categorize this as important."

"Have you ever met him before?" I ask.

"Oh, yeah. Plenty of times. He came personally to let me out of the Detention Center, he had his little sidekick come deliver the Fortune Cup invite to me… We talked at the Fortune Cup, too. He's not a hard man to get in touch with, at least if he wants to talk to you."

"...Ushio said he was ordered to keep you out of sight," I tell him. "Maybe Goodwin is meeting us in here."

"I have no doubt he knows we're here, all that time we spent waiting in the car was probably spent trying to contact him. I just think it's rude that they locked the door."

"You really want to go snooping around the Security Maintenance Bureau Headquarters?" I retort. " _I_ can just unlock the door."

"Ah, right. Psychic." He runs a hand through his hair. "That reminds me. What's the armband you wear for? So far I haven't seen you without it, and this morning when you almost broke Saiga's cabinets you put your hand on it. What does it do?"

"Oh," I say. I peel myself out of my jacket and reach to unclip my stabilizer. "It's a stabilizer. Here, you can look at it."

"You sure? You don't need it on you all the time?"

"No, it's okay." I hand it to him, and he turns it over in his fingers. "Only younger psychics without a handle on their powers really need them all the time. I just wear mine all the time because it makes me feel better."

"It looks a little like Aki's hair-spike thing," he observes.

"That's because that's _her_ stabilizer."

"Why are they different? Does everyone have one?"

"More or less, it's sort of customary. I've only ever seen one psychic without one. And, the closer you wear it to your head, the stronger your powers are."

He fiddles with the hinge that clips the band together. "Why is that?"

"Chakras, I'm fairly certain," I say. "Do you know anything about chakras?"

"Educate me?"

"So you have seven chakras—the seventh one, on the crown of your head, is the center of your body's ability to forge spiritual connections to your surroundings."

"Psychic ability is centered on chakras?" He asks.

"To what I understand, yes," I tell him. "I'm not totally clear on all of the specifics, and I'm not sure anybody else really is either, but the seventh is the most potent when it comes to regulating psychic energy. So because Aki is among the more powerful, she wears her stabilizer on her seventh chakra. I wear mine in between my fourth and fifth."

"Interesting. During our duel, hers fell out when her powers go to be too much. Does yours do that?"

"That's a power concentration thing. The stabilizer keeps you from exuding too much energy by keeping it pent up inside. I'm supposed to take it off when I use my power, because otherwise it can hurt me."

"So, when Aki's falls out, it's the opposite of what happens to you. Keeping too much energy in for too long hurts you, but she has so much that the stabilizer can't take it rather than her own body."

"You're a fast learner."

"Just context clues," he says. "What is this thing made of, anyways?"

"It's a metal called Dyne," I answer. "It has high energy conducting capabilities, and it has a really high density."

"That's what duel runners are made out of," he observes. "That's really fascinating. Thanks for letting me look at it." He holds my stabilizer out to me.

"Since we're apparently playing the question game," I say, clipping my stabilizer back on, "why did you bring your wrist dealer? Do you take it everywhere?"

"You brought yours, too."

"Only because you did, I wasn't sure what else to do or what your plan was."

"I bring my cards everywhere," he concedes. "I don't want anyone else taking them. And I never know when I need them, anyways."

"Okay. That's a good reason to have them, I was just curious." I pull one of the chairs in closer to me and sit in it. "How long do you suppose we'll be in here?"

"Who knows? It already took them _years_ to get us here. Who knows what Goodwin's doing or how long he'll keep us here?" He puts his boot against the table and pushes off from it to spin his chair in a circle. "Is it my turn to ask a question? Since you said we're playing the question game."

"Oh. Yeah, go for it."

I don't know what I'm expecting him to ask. I'm almost waiting for a really heavy question, after all we've discussed already, but he says, "What's something you've always wanted to do?"

"I… Um…." I haven't ever really thought about that. And mentally preparing myself for a possibly worse question doesn't help me try to figure out what to say.

"You don't need to have an answer. I'm not talking big aspirations, or anything. Just possible things you could do once all of this blows over."

"Um… I think I'd—I'd like to go to the beach."

"Really?"

"Yeah," I admit. "I've seen pictures and paintings, and I just… Neo Domino's so big that I've always felt landlocked. I've read all about what the weather's like, and the waves, and where the sand comes from. I don't know how to swim, so I think I'd probably just look at the water, but… It's something different than all of this. I think it would be nice to go and see it for myself."

"You do a lot of reading," he says, "don't you?"

"It was all I ever could do," I say. "What about you? Something you've always wanted to do?"

"Get my own place," he says, without missing a beat. "When I moved out of Martha's house in Satellite, I didn't really have a home. I bunked with a few friends in an old subway tunnel that we turned into a hideout. What I'm talking is... a house, maybe. Or an apartment. Just somewhere that's real and won't fall down on me, where I sleep in a real bed and I can go downstairs in the mornings and make breakfast, or whatever. A place like that."

"I think… I'd like that, too. Where I could feel okay leaving my bedroom door open and nobody will stop me from walking out the front door."

"How did you used to get out of the Movement?" He asks. "I can't assume you used the front entrance."

"I climbed out of the ventilation system," I tell him. "There was a vent that reached the ground floor from the third level, and I'd sneak in and out that way."

"You _climbed_ out a _vent_ ," he says slowly. "Damn, C."

"There was no other way out! Besides, going out was more like a slide. It sloped downward like _this_." I gesture in a sort of scooping motion. "Climbing back up was the hard part, it was like trying to become a human spider."

"How did you even figure out that that was an exit?"

"I, um… I stumbled on the specs of the Movement building folded up all tiny and buried in the middle of an encyclopedia about reptiles," I admit. "It was all I found to read one week. I don't know how it ended up there, but I figured out how to read it and I found all of the building exits that weren't the front door."

"Hm," Yusei remarks. "A _resourceful_ reader."

"Almost everything I know, I got out of a book," I tell him. "I told you. It was all I had to do—and somehow, when I read it, I remember it. Can't remember almost anything I did last week, but I remember nearly everything I've ever read. Not word for word, but… close. I guess."

"I wonder how that works," he says. "You've got no capacity for real, event-based things, but you have almost photographic memory of words on a page?"

"I know, it's weird. I don't know what Divine did to me. That's something else I want, somebody to fix me."

He scoffs. "You're not broken. You just need a little help. I lost my memory once, and it literally only took me a couple hours to get it back, but I just needed something familiar to remind me. Maybe going to Satellite will be the help you need."

"...yeah. Maybe." I take interest in my shoes and put a hand against the conference table to start my chair spinning like his. "Hey, so, if you never knew your parents, how do you know your family name? How does _Ushio_ know your family name?"

"Oh, that." Yusei crosses his arms. "I guess I just came with it. Martha would use the full thing to scold me as a kid, so I knew it right away. As for Ushio, he's just a snoop."

"Do _I_ have a family name?"

"Of course, all of us came with our parents' names. We just don't know our parents."

"Did _anybody_ know them?"

"Nobody _alive_ ," Yusei scoffs. "At least, I assume. Nobody I've met knew anything about my parents. And nobody so far has recognized the name, either."

"Gotcha." I spin my chair again. "...not even Goodwin?"

"No?" He says. "Why?"

"Well, I… he had a bunch of his people escort me up to him when I was at the Fortune Cup, and you were dueling Jack."

"Really?"

"Yeah," I admit. "It was a weird conversation, and it seemed mostly like he wanted to see if I was going to get involved in whatever is going on with you. The Signer thing."

"He certainly knows a lot more than he lets on," Yusei exhales.

"He knew about me being in Arcadia," I say. "That Divine took me, at least. He probably could have shut Divine down and taken me back home. And when I demanded he tell me more, he had me escorted out after making some comment about how I look like my mother."

Yusei tsks. "What a sociopath. But that's interesting, about your mother. You know what that has to insinuate, don't you?"

I shake my head.

"Either you were born here, in Neo Domino," he says, "or Goodwin is from Satellite."

I blink at him. "Oh."

"Yeah. Funny, what kind of stuff gets kept a secret from kids like us."

"I wish there were ways to know more," I say.

"I know. It sucks. It doesn't help to harp on it, though. We have different problems now."

"Do you really believe that?" I ask. "Maybe we could just have as many problems as we want. Maybe the problems in the past just contribute to the ones in the future."

"Maybe so," he responds, "but I'm never going to get any sleep if I don't focus on one problem at a time."

"...I guess so," I exhale.

The door to the room suddenly whacks open so quickly that I flinch and smack my knee against the table.

Ushio strides in, flanked by two officers, and stares me and Yusei down for a second.

" _Hi_ ," Yusei says flatly. "Are you done locking us in a room? Are we seeing Goodwin yet?"

"He's busy," Ushio retorts, arms crossed. "But if you're so bored with sitting around, you can crack open those cards of yours and I'll teach you a damn lesson."

"Oh, yeah, because that went _so_ well for you the first four times."

"You little—"

"Please keep your wits about you, Officer." I recognize Goodwin's right hand man, Yeager, as he maneuvers between the other Securities to stand between us and Ushio. "I highly doubt that you would stand a chance against our reigning champion, anyways."

Ushio's face flushes as Yeager passes him. "Uh—"

"Since you have nothing better to do, Officer, why don't you go collect Mr. Atlas from the hospital? He's very determined to be discharged _today_."

I watch the order churn around on Ushio's face for a second, before he figures that it's probably not up for debate and he turns to leave. I steal a glance at Yusei and find that his expression has hardened at the mention of Jack Atlas.

I wonder if I'll ever meet him. Though all of the things Yusei has said about him make me want to steer clear of _ever_ having to introduce myself to the elusive former King.

"The Director offers his condolences for keeping you waiting," Yeager begins. "Unfortunately, the two of you will have to be moved to have your little meeting."

" _Moved_?" Yusei retorts. "Why?"

"The Director expected you to seek him out eventually, Yusei," Yeager tells him, "though I'm afraid none of us expected that you'd have a guest with you."

 _Oh_. Do I have to leave, then? How do I get to Satellite now?

"She comes," Yusei states thinly, "or I don't."

Yeager laughs—it's a little bit of an unsettling sound. "I'm afraid you've misunderstood me. The presence of your friend isn't the problem. It's the presence of _her_ friends. If one could call them that."

My ' _friends_ '? It's kind of unfortunate to say, but I don't really have any 'friends'. "W-What does that mean?" I pipe up.

Yusei is already on his feet. "You're talking about those Movement people. You let them into the building?"

My stomach feels like it's dropped to my feet. _Arcadia_ is _here_?

"It's a public center, unfortunately, which means that anybody could walk in," Yeager retorts. "To the ground floor, at the very least. If we're finished asking for exposition, I suggest the two of you come with me."

I feel like I'm frozen to the spot; Yusei grabs my wrist and pulls me to my feet, then out the door after Yeager and the two Securities. I guess he feels me shaking, because his voice is ten times softer as he says, "It's okay."

Why are they here? More importantly, _who_ is here? Did Divine send a pack of clerics to look for me, or something?

"What are they doing here?" Yusei asks, almost like he read my mind.

"The founder of the Arcadia Movement was a little _miffed_ , shall we say, when he discovered your friend missing—and he made it known to Director Goodwin right away." Yeager has something of a scowl in his voice. "I suppose he believes that we had a hand in her disappearance, because we've had his little henchmen camped out around our headquarters since the Fortune Cup's end. Though, it's a bit different when what they want gets dropped off right out front."

"So, where are you taking us, then?"

"Out. Away. Somewhere where they simply cannot follow."

Yusei scoffs. "And what's in it for you?"

"The amusement of being an inconvenience," Yeager says casually.

"Right," Yusei mutters. His fingers move from my wrist to close around my hand. "Stay behind me, okay? Just in case."

This is day three that I've known him. I remember nothing about him, and he only recognized me at all because he knows my brother… yet he's being so kind to me. And for no reason. Like Seria, freeing me and staying in Arcadia for the others just because of compassion. Yusei is going through so much to take me to Satellite with him, and here he is trying to protect me from the possibility of reentering Arcadia when the only things he knows about it are from what I've told him.

How is it that _this_ is the person who helped to free me? How has the universe finally stopped dealing me a _brick_ of a hand and given me a friend like this?

And why now does it feel so much more unfair that, after everything he's told me, a person as good as him just keeps getting screwed over?

We're moving quickly down a hallway, and I'm clenching Yusei's hand like it's my tether to this life, until we reach an elevator. Yusei has me stay hidden behind him, squished between his back and the wall, and the Securities and Yeager pile in after us. The elevator hasn't even started moving when I feel the familiar buzz in the air that says there's a psychic nearby.

It's a warning and a reminder; they can sense me, too. If we run into someone, there's no way a lie is going to work. Whoever is here is going to sense me.

I don't know what else to do but squeeze my eyes shut. I'm imagining that I'm as tiny as I can possibly be, that I'm slipping down into the cracks of the universe and escaping out that way. Wherever _that way_ is. If they couldn't detect me, this would all be okay. But how do you keep someone from detecting you? How do you stop a Specifier from Specifying?

The elevator jerks to a sudden stop and my heart jolts with it. Yeager, distastefully, snipes, "This isn't our stop. We're still four floors too high, which one of you pressed the wrong button?!"

I still have my eyes squeezed shut, and I'm trying to block out Yeager squabbling with the Securities. Yusei's voice sounds out of a dream when he begins, "Breathe, C—"

He cuts off and there's silence, and the 'ding' of the elevator as the door slides open.

"Well, what an unpleasant surprise."

That's the voice that turns me to stone.

I'm not even breathing anymore. I'm trying to shrink all of myself down, until I'm invisible, until I'm away. Wishing and wishing and wishing that I become too tiny and inconsequential to notice. I'm dead if he knows I'm here. I may never even see daylight again.

"Do you Arcadia fools ever abide by rules?" Yeager retorts. "This is a service elevator for personnel only."

"And yet you're toting the Fortune Cup champion with you? That's an unfortunate hypocrisy, Mr. Vice Director."

"I have business with Director Goodwin," Yusei says, in a voice so cold that I shrink even more. "What exactly is your business here supposed to be?"

"My business is my business, Mr. Fudo. I'm quite finished with your irritating attempts to meddle in the affairs of my apprentice."

My head has started to pound. _You can't see me, I'm invisible. I'm invisible_.

"I would thank you kindly to escort _yourself_ out into the public waiting area before I call for escorts _for_ you," Yeager retorts.

"Whenever you're done confirming that whatever it is you're snooping around for isn't in here with us," Yusei ripostes, "I'm late for a meeting."

Silence, for one second. Two. Something slithers down from my nose.

"Ah, yes, of course. My apologies for keeping you." I hear the horrible, familiar, syrupy smile in Divine's voice. "Good day."

I don't breathe until the elevator opens again, out into an underground parking garage, and only then do I realize that my lungs are screaming for air.

"C?" Yusei's hand closes around my shoulder. "C, your nose—"

"I-I… oh, wow…"

"Hurry up," Yeager scoffs. Yusei holds his arm out to support me as we start across the parking garage toward a black car.

"How did that happen?" Yusei marvels.

I'm crushing my hand to my nose, trying to stop the bleeding. "I-It happens when I overexert myself."

"What did you do?"

"I… I hid myself. I think."

He helps me into the backseat of the car, then slides in beside me. "You 'hid' yourself?"

The two Securities hop into the front seat, so I guess Yeager is staying here. The car starts pulling out of the garage, and I think briefly about how I never even got to thank him for warning us about Arcadia.

"Psychics can sense each other," I murmur. "And I… I just wanted to be invisible. I knew if someone caught us they would sense me and know something was up. So I just squeezed my eyes shut and… I don't know. I imagined I was tiny and I held my breath until it was over."

"...does anything hurt?"

"N-No. Not yet, at least…" I exhale slowly. "...Divine _himself_ came for me."

"And… that's a bad thing. Isn't it?"

"Of course," I whisper, "he's the most powerful psychic in the Movement."

"But?" Yusei presses.

"I… I didn't know he cared enough to come himself."

Yusei exhales. After a moment, he says, "I think you're right, about the sensing thing. I think Divine was there, at that specific elevator, because he could sense you." I can feel his eyes on me. "Would any of us have been able to protect you if you hadn't hid yourself like that?"

"...no," I murmur. Divine could have set the walls aflame in an instant and dragged me off, had he detected me.

"Then I'm glad you did it. And I'm proud of you for thinking fast and protecting yourself."

I'm stuck on the word _proud_ for a second. Then I say, "Thank you."

I press my sleeve against my nose to try and soak up the blood, and I pin my eyes silently on the view out the window as the car rolls down the highway. Yusei is close enough to me that my shoulder is pressing in against his, but he doesn't move, and neither do I. I'm still shaking a little from the shock of being that close to Divine again, and having anybody close enough to me to touch is more of a comfort than it is an annoyance. If we weren't in a car, I think I would submit to my overwhelming urge to lie down.

The car continues up the highway, and the buildings on all sides of us start to thin out as we reach the edge of the city. The sun's high enough in the sky for me to guess that it must be late afternoon.

At some point, the car pulls off of the highway and onto the side of the road, where there's a circle of black cars against the side of the highway. We pull over, and I tumble out of the car after Yusei.

I see Goodwin there, beside the guardrail, watching an island off in the distance with the same stoic expression he wore when I saw him at the Fortune Cup.

"Hello, you two," he says when we get close enough to hear him. "How wonderful to see you both in one piece."

"Can we cut past the small talk?" Yusei retorts. "I think you owe me some answers."

"Why," Goodwin asks, "do you ride a duel runner, Yusei?"

He pauses, beside me—he didn't expect that question. " _I_ don't have to tell _you_ anything."

"This bridge we stand upon was meant to connect Neo Domino City to the Satellite sector. Obviously, it was never finished, and both of our societies remain separate. Though you, who built a duel runner and used to to cross… perhaps you will be the one to connect them."

"I'm really not here for the version of reality you're trying to pitch to me," Yusei retorts. "If you really wanted them connected, you would have done it already. You've got more than enough power to."

"I would simply be spreading the death of Satellite into Neo Domino."

"What kind of death are we talking, here?"

"As your birthmark makes you a Signer, your counterparts still remain—the _Dark_ Signers."

"I'm familiar," Yusei remarks.

"The Dark Signers are the archnemesis to the Signers. They have reappeared after 5000 years and possess souls of the deepest darkness; when the door to that darkness at last opens, the battle between Signers and Dark Signers for the world will begin," Goodwin explains. "This same battle has happened before. Five thousand years ago, the People of the Stars, under the Crimson Dragon, borrowed the power of its servants, the Signer Dragons, to seal wickedness within the earth and lock the doors to Hell. Afterward, the Crimson Dragon was split into five parts and sealed in the human world."

I almost feel like I should be writing this down. And, while I still don't feel at liberty to question anything that happens from here on out, it sounds strange and impossible to insinuate that Yusei, Aki, Ruka, and Jack Atlas are… _reincarnations_ of older civilizations.

"That mark is the seal." Goodwin gestures to him, and Yusei's hand flies to where his mark is—like Goodwin can see it, and Yusei doesn't want him to. "The Crimson Dragon, imparted upon you."

"Why is it happening again?" Yusei demands—half statement, half answer.

"I wonder if you know about Ener-D?"

"Ener-what?"

"The first Ener-D existed in the depths of Satellite, 17 years ago: A perfect, clean energy generator to power all of Satellite and Neo Domino. Although the control system was perfect, Ener-D began a negative rotation rather than its typical positive one. That caused an outburst of energy that came to destroy parts of Satellite. At the time, a large amount of dark energy emerged from the depths of the earth as if in a response."

So there was… what, an explosion? Seventeen years ago? How big would it have had to be to rouse something locked up down in the ground?

"When the Dark Signers appear, the doors to Hell are sure to open," Goodwin continues. "And after five thousand years, the Crimson Dragon's seal upon those dark essences has been weakened and the Original Ener-D Reactor has become a door to the netherworld. To close that door, you must defeat the gatekeepers—the Dark Signers. The Fortune Cup was held for this purpose. To find you and to inform you of what lies ahead."

"...how do you expect me to believe any of what you're telling me?" Yusei asks.

"You've seen the Dragon. You bear the mark. What more proof do you need?"

"...if… if this is real, and you're saying Satellite is definitely going to be destroyed, then you need to evacuate it. _Now_."

"That is something I cannot do. When the people of Satellite are no longer there, the Dark Signers will seek new victims. They will come here."

"You would willingly sacrifice all of those people?!" Yusei exclaims. "Is that why you use it as your marooning rock?! Why no one is allowed to leave, so you can just waste other people's' lives for the sake of this battle? What the hell is wrong with you?!"

"No matter what you think of me or my methods," Goodwin tells him, "you and the other Signers have a fate you must fulfill. If you wish to save Satellite, you all must defeat the Dark Signers."

"There are only four of us," Yusei remarks, half through his teeth. "Aren't there supposed to be five?"

"Your fifth will show their face soon enough." Goodwin inclines his head toward me. "Have you thought at all about what I asked of you, C?"

Yusei glances over his shoulder toward me. I'm still soaking up blood with my jacket sleeve, but I remember what Goodwin said. _If your city were to go up in flames, would you fight to save it_?

I watch Yusei's face; I think of what I told him earlier. I have a brother and a caretaker in Satellite that I've never met that I don't want to lose. And I remember him last night, in the darkness of the garage: _it's home_ , he said. _Everyone I care about is there_. I don't know what I'm getting myself into, but I'm involved. I can't back out now, and I certainly can't leave Yusei to fight it by himself after I said I wanted to help him. After he's already done so much to help _me_.

"I have no memory of Satellite," I say, "and Neo Domino hasn't been very kind to me thus far. But Yusei's been kind to me, and if he's going to fight, then so will I."

"Very well, then." Goodwin turns back to look at the island in the distance. "I've arranged transportation back to Satellite for the both of you. And I wish you all the luck in the world."


	14. Astray With Me

We're to sit and wait until morning to leave for Satellite—in the meantime, Security drives us back to where we stayed in last night in Daimon and a guard in a nice suit tells us that there'll be an escort for us first thing in the morning.

Yusei seems to know exactly where the spare key to the flat is hidden; right outside of the front door, underneath a loose floor board. When we get inside, we find that Himuro, Yanagi, and the twins are nowhere to be found. I can't help but wonder and worry about where they went, but Yusei's pretty confident that they're okay.

In the meantime, in the aftermath of what happened to me today, I'm up half the night pacing. Checking to make sure every door is still locked. Peering out the window in the main room to make sure there's no one on the street below.

I don't know what time it is when Yusei finally rolls over on the couch and says, his voice rough, "He's not out there. You need to lie down, C."

"Go back to sleep," I murmur.

"I know you're afraid, but you need to try to rest."

"I'll be fine, I'm used to no sleep."

"Yeah, I can tell," he snaps; he's growing impatient. "I need you to at least try to go to bed. Pacing around isn't going to help you at all."

"How do you know?"

"I just do." He sits up, his form limp like he's been deprived all of his energy. "Come on."

"And you need to—"

"Come _on_." He throws his jacket at me—he's been using it as a blanket—and squeezes in closer to the inside back of the couch, against the cushions. "For my _sanity_ , C. I _will_ start begging."

"...fine." I drape the jacket around me like a cape and crawl in opposite of him, my head next to his feet, to attempt to get through one of the worst nights of my life.

I don't know when I finally lose out to exhaustion, but I wake up feeling tired enough that my eyes are burning. It's all dark; it takes me a second to realize that I can't see anything because I've pulled Yusei's coat up over my head to hide myself from the sun. I can still feel where his legs are pressed up against my back, and somehow knowing that he's still there makes me breathe a little easier.

All I sense are the two of us. Divine, then, either didn't look for me or didn't find me during the night. I'm sure if he had, I'd be waking up in the Movement right now. Behind _glass_ , maybe. Like a doll on display.

I lie there, in the dark underneath the coat, until I feel him toss a couple times sometime later and the couch cushions give a little underneath us as he sits up. He tugs the coat down a little, maybe to check if I'm awake, and light hits my face through the main room window.

"Hey," he says softly. "I'm sorry. Did I wake you?"

"No, I've been awake for a while. It's just really bright."

I have to squint a little when I look at him; the light is circumventing his shape and streaming out around him like it's coming from him. Maybe it's the sunbeams or my drowsiness or the way the shadows seem to make his eyes bluer, but suddenly I'm confused as to why I've never noticed what a nice face he has. I've only had the chance to really closely look at and appreciate the faces of a handful of people, but he looks like a boy out of a beautiful painting.

"I don't know how much time we have," he says, "but I can probably make us coffee."

"Okay," I say. "That sounds nice."

I roll off of the couch first to let him get up, and I shuffle after him toward the kitchenette—I can't help but swivel my head toward the window as we go, just to make sure.

He doesn't let it go unnoticed. "Hey, you survived the night. Congrats."

"O-Oh. Was that… was that sarcastic?"

He scoffs. "...maybe a little bit. In all seriousness, you're going to be fine. I know yesterday was scary, but as soon as we're back in Satellite, you're home free."

"You're not… You're not worried about him following us? He got there the first time, didn't he?"

"If he still thinks Goodwin is the one who has you, he'll be focused on Goodwin and the Bureau. Not on us."

I stand on the other side of the counter and watch him pour coffee grounds into the top of the pot—Himuro or Yanagi must have washed it out yesterday, before they went off to wherever they are now. I can see the Signer mark standing out on Yusei's arm like the red lines of a tattoo; not like Aki's or Ruka's, whose marks run deep like brands. "...what would we even do? If he caught up to us?"

"Why don't you tell me what you think the best course of action is? He's a psychic, and I'm not, so I doubt I'd even be able to _try_ to protect you."

"I-I don't… I'm lucky I could even hide!"

"What do you mean?"

"When Divine's around, I just… I freeze up," I admit. "If he finds me, I'll be in more trouble than I've ever been in. I'm… so used to having nowhere else to go, and just getting dragged off… struggling always made it worse. So I don't."

"C," he says gently, "if you come in contact with Divine again, you have to realize that you can't let him take you away. What happened yesterday was the most passive form of resistance I think you probably could have managed, but it was effective in that situation. If you're standing right in front of him and it's a matter of you taking your life back or getting dragged straight back to Arcadia, you have to choose to fight back."

"I-I'm… I'm not strong enough, Yusei."

"After the spur-of-the-moment thing that happened yesterday? I think you're much stronger than you believe you are."

I don't know what to say, and he leaves it at that, so I guess the conversation is over.

While the coffee is brewing, I go to peer out the window again, just out of a need to feel safe for a few more minutes, and I see three or four Security duel runners parked out front.

"I think the escort is here," I say on my way back around to the kitchenette.

"Perfect. We'll chug and go. Do you have your backpack?"

"It's in the garage," I tell him. I lay his coat down on the counter and go outside into the garage to get my pads and my jacket. When I'm all strapped up and ready, I come back in to get my wrist dealer off of the table in the main room. Yusei's pulling his gloves on, and when he has a hand free he slides a mug at me across the counter. Between drinks, I try to pick all of the knots and tangles out of my hair to keep it from becoming one huge matted mess.

When the coffee's gone and Yusei's washed out the coffee pot, I follow him out to pull our duel runners out into the street. I feel much livelier, but I'm also a little nervous about getting on Hiraeth again. It's been a whole day since I've ridden; who knows how this will affect my ability to keep up?

With my backpack slung over my shoulder and my helmet snug around my head, I pull Hiraeth out into the alleyway behind Yusei, he shuts the door and locks it up, and we trudge out into view of the Securities.

I think it's early enough that Daimon is still, effectively, asleep. There are no city sounds, just quiet morning air.

The Securities make a little square around us; we start up and out of the district, and the street is so empty that they don't even have to turn their lights on. I'm very wobbly today, but it might be because of the lack of space. Once we get onto the causeway, there's enough room for me to drift from side to side a little to keep my balance while I try to get a feel for riding again.

Yusei rides like he was born on a duel runner; he's a straight shot, no wavering. The duel runner that he built, even, moves like it was made by perfect factory hands. Boy, what wouldn't I give to plop my schematics notebook down in front of him and ask him what he thinks.

The leading Securities keep driving down the nearly empty causeway—any cars we see pull over to let us pass—until we're coming down off of a ramp and into a neighborhood, almost, of houses that look like they were made out of tin. Big metal crates sit on top of each other, some askew enough to look like they might fall, big cranes that I've only seen from out a window, and Security cars and forklifts everywhere. We all slow down to try and maneuver ourselves around crates and people and piles of things, until we get out where it's open again and I see a big idling helicopter with two propellers.

I stay close to Yusei, who doesn't ask any questions—no one really talks to him, actually, but he must be pretty recognizable after the Fortune Cup for people to just let him walk by without being asked why he's here—and we walk our duel runners onto the ramp out the back of the helicopter.

"This is fancy," Yusei mutters. "Definitely not what I expected, though. I thought they might take us out on a barge."

"Satellite is… how far out?" I ask.

"A few miles, I think. It certainly won't be a long flight, but I don't know if they're going to drop us off or literally _drop us off_."

"Um," I say.

"Don't worry. I know you're a new rider. If we have to make a drop, tip yourself back a little, take the impact in your back wheel, and hold on tight. The momentum will toss you forward into your front wheel."

"Have you done this before?!"

"I've done a lot of stuff a person my age probably shouldn't have done," he says. "That's beside the point. Just… don't panic. When we get some time, maybe I can teach you some tips and tricks. You're not too shabby for a new rider, but you still have a ways to go. You ride like you're scared of falling, and it shows."

"Aren't _you_ scared of falling?"

"I've ridden enough that it's not a problem. With some time and practice, you'll get there, too."

"If you say so…"

Not long after we've settled ourselves, sitting with our hands tight on the handlebars of our runners, the back hatch starts to close with a noise like iron nails scraping along a sheet of steel. Yusei doesn't even flinch, and I'm beginning to believe that absolutely nothing fazes him.

My entire stomach feels like it's leaving my body when I feel the helicopter lift off of the ground, and immediately I wish we had taken a boat, or something. _Why_ does Satellite have to be in the middle of the ocean?

Yusei notices how rigid I am, I guess, and tries to start a conversation over the almost unbearable rumble of the engine somewhere beneath us. "Doing okay over there?"

"How are you so calm?!" I exclaim. "I feel like I left half of my organs on the ground!"

"I've done a lot of shit, C!"

"Do you want a trophy? I've done some shit, too, but you don't see me straight-facing it through free air!"

He laughs a little, and it makes heat creep upward in my cheeks. "I don't think we'll be up here very long! When I came across to the city, I only took about three minutes on a duel runner!"

"I'm going to take your word for it and hope that it's right!"

We sit there in pretty much silence after that, save for the engine sounds beneath us, and I stare at the blank screen on my duel runner to try and keep focused on something other than the anxious, weightless feeling in my stomach.

I dwell on the fact that we got no message from Goodwin this morning. Not even a glimpse of Yeager or anybody else we saw yesterday. I wonder if that has anything to do with me—if Goodwin going somewhere would bring Divine, too, or if it's just too early for Goodwin to have graced us with his presence.

On top of that, I have to wonder what's going on in Yusei's head. Yesterday, Goodwin pretty much told him that he has to save all the people he cares about, his home, and quite possibly the whole world. Depending on how big and bad these 'Dark Signers' get, he's going to have a lot to live up to. I remember him tossing last night before he made me lie down. How broken up about it is he, really? And am I being insensitive by being so focused on myself? Or is that not how this works?

What are his plans, even, for when we get down to Satellite? All of the things that Goodwin said to him, about energy and stuff, kind of went in one ear and out the other for me. Yusei might have an idea about where to go, but I don't.

Not too long into the flight, I suddenly hear that horrible nails-on-steel sound again as the hatch starts to crack open. Wind whips in and against my face, blowing my hair back. We're… we're still flying?

"Yeah, I figured they wouldn't be nice enough to put us down gently!" Yusei shouts.

"W-What the _hell_!"

"Did I ever mention?" He calls above the wind. "Nothing I get involved in ever has an easy way in or out!"

"Oh, I figured, but I never signed up for skydiving!"

"Well, it's the only way down!" He starts his duel runner up again, and as the hatch falls stationary, I barely hear him say, "See you at the bottom!" before he drops out of the hatch and into open air.

Yeah, I most certainly _did not sign up for skydiving_.

Then, I'm free falling, and it's the most terrifying feeling I've ever felt in my entire life. The ground's coming at me so fast, just a blur of monochrome, and I almost don't hear Yusei shouting at me to ramp backward before I remember what he told me and I put every ounce of strength into yanking my handlebars up and trying to hit the ground back-wheel-first.

I bounce, and like Yusei said it would, Hiraeth shoots forward. I'm holding on as tight as I possibly can, but that doesn't stop me from sailing up over the handlebars and flying down into a pile of… something. Dirt and stuff. I hit the ground back-first and it certainly isn't a soft landing; my backpack doesn't do much to break my fall.

Jolted and a little bleary-eyed, I lie on the ground for a second and try to get my bearings. I hear Yusei's voice, shouting, " _C_? Are you okay?"

" _Peachy_!" I shout back, but my voice cracks. "Can we never do that again? Please? Ever?"

"All right, you sound pretty okay! I told you to hold on tight, didn't I?"

"I-I did!"

"It's all right, shake it off! That's what the helmet's for!"

"Wow, _you're_ helpful!"

When everything is a little less spinny, I heave myself up and sweep my head around. It looks… I don't know. Almost exactly the way I imagined it, based on what Yusei told me. I landed on a pile of rubble, and Yusei and my duel runner are perched up on top of the old, dilapidated roof of a building. The sky, too, is a little cloudier, a little drearier, than it was when we left Neo Domino. When I drag my aching body back up the slope to Yusei to try and heave Hiraeth up off of the ground, I find that the terrain looks almost the same for miles around. Stretches and stretches of broken concrete buildings, heaps of metal and rubble forming the silhouettes of mountains in the distance. The helicopter, now, is a dot far away on the jagged horizon.

" _Well_ ," Yusei exhales, sounding borderline disappointed, "welcome to dirt. And more dirt. And a lot more _dirt_."

"But it's home," I say.

His voice softens a little as he replies, "Yeah. Yeah, it's home."

"...so no more skydiving. Right? _Please_?"

"Not sure." He surveys the area around us. "Okay, we're in Puzzle."

" _Where_?"

"Puzzle, it's right off the edge of the bay. It's called 'Puzzle' because everything is in pieces. Obviously, our _wonderful_ escorts didn't want to bring us in closer to the Residential district in case anybody tried to hitch a ride with them. That's probably where they could have put us down like normal human beings instead of _airdropping_ us."

"Okay… so is the Residential district where we want to go?"

"To check on my friends? Yes."

"And after that? What's the plan?"

"I have an idea as to where Goodwin was talking about yesterday… there's a disaster zone to the southwest, called the B.A.D., and there's a big crater there that definitely looks like something imploded there. That's where I'd start." Suddenly he flips the visor on his helmet open and squints somewhere past me. "We've got company."

I whirl over my shoulder; not too far away from us, on top of one of the piles that probably used to be a building, I see a figure of a person and a duel runner.

"Wait," Yusei says flatly. "Is that…?" He dismounts his duel runner and peers into the distance; I can hear the sound of an engine as the person brings their duel runner closer, closer, until they're at the base of the pile of rubble Yusei and I are standing on.

The rider takes their helmet off—up closer, they're skinny and tan with wild red hair. "Well, _fuck_. Yusei, is that you?"

Yusei tosses his helmet off, too. "I thought I recognized you!" Yusei slides down to the ground to meet the stranger, easily enough that I can envision him spending a good portion of his life scaling these piles. He grabs the stranger in a handshake that turns into a hug. "It's been way too long!"

" _Too long_? It's been three or four _years_ , buddy! That's a lifetime, if you ask me!" The stranger laughs. "Joining the mark party, I see? The Bureau finally caught up to you!"

"Yeah, looks like it caught up to you, too. Three _more_ times."

"Hey, a guy's gotta eat."

"And you finished your duel runner, too?"

"Yeah, just last year, actually. I see you did the same!" At that point, the stranger cuts his eyes up to me. "Oh, hey. And you've got a new friend?"

"Actually…" Yusei looks up at me. "Come down here, C!"

I scramble to wrench my helmet off and try to find a way down the heap of rubble without falling spectacularly onto my face. When I finally get to the ground and close enough to meet the stranger's eyes, it takes him only a second or two to curse. "Holy shit. _Wait_."

He's, more or less, a head taller than me, yellow criminal marks cutting shapes in both of his cheeks and his forehead. Grey eyes like marble.

"C, this is Crow," Yusei begins. "He's one of Martha's kids, too."

There's no familiarity in his face. And I don't want to tell him that, especially since, given the way he's looking at me, he's found familiarity in _mine_.

" _C_ ," this boy, Crow, says slowly. "Not—"

"Maybe at one point," Yusei interrupts him. "Yeah. But I found her in the city. No memory, fake name."

"Damn." Crow shakes his head a little. "Ev's going to have a fucking _aneurysm_."

"Please don't joke about that, I'm pretty sure sending me off already put a spike in his blood pressure."

"Alright, alright. Well, C," Crow sighs. "It's good to have you back! No memory? You probably don't remember me."

"I… no," I admit sheepishly.

He waves a hand. "Ahhh, that's okay. I remember you, that's all that counts. Of course, when I knew you, you were just a teeny thing with a lot of big thoughts. Now, you're… well…" He makes this sort of hourglass shape in the air with his hands. Yusei smacks him in the shoulder. "Yeah! Um, so."

"The big thoughts stayed," Yusei remarks. "So did the big opinions."

"Right," I retort.

"Don't mind the sass, he was born with it, it's incurable, trust me." Crow waves a hand. "Ignoring that _really_ awkward introduction, what brings you out here in a helicopter?"

"Oh, you saw that," Yusei states.

"And I wish I had documented C's faceplant." Crow winks at me, and I'm hoping that the humiliated heat creeping up into my cheeks doesn't show in color. "Somebody important had you turned loose here, hm?"

"More or less," Yusei tells him. "We were going to head back to the hideout to check on Rally and the guys."

"Sounds like fun. Am I allowed to tag along?"

"If you can keep up, sure," Yusei tells him.

"Oh, give me a fuckin' break." Crow jabs his thumb in Yusei's direction and rolls his eyes toward me. "Can you believe this guy? He gets _one_ Fortune Cup title and he thinks he can outrace Crow "The Bullet"."

"You gave yourself that nickname," Yusei retorts. "And quit cozying up to C at my expense, she doesn't need a headache this early in the morning."

"Oh, you bruise me, old friend." Crow reaches for the helmet at his feet. "Let's go check on your roomies."

"Wait," I say. "How'd you know about the Fortune Cup?"

Crow chuckles. "I may live in a post-apocalyptic circle of dirt, but I can still Macgyver myself a TV."

Yusei and I trudge back up the heap of crumbling concrete to get our duel runners, and I decide that I like Crow. He waits for us to meet him at the bottom, and the three of us spend who-knows-how-long navigating out of a labyrinth of buildings that are as good as dust. Yusei seems to know exactly where he's going, and kind of speeds ahead; Crow lags behind a little to make sure I'm keeping up.

On our drive, it dawns on me that Yusei has mentioned Crow before—when we talked, that night, in the garage, in Daimon. I think it flew straight over my head, but now that I think about it again, I'm pretty sure he told me that somebody named Crow found my cards when I disappeared. So, this person is of the time of when Yusei and Jack Atlas were still friends, then? And I heard him say that he hasn't seen Yusei in _three or four years_. Where has he been, then? What happened to him?

When the rubble starts to clear up, big buildings start to rise up around us; they're crumbling in places, sure, but they're still standing, and they could probably house a lot of people. I don't see anybody on the street, though… is it too early for anybody to be around?

In some intersection, Yusei slows to a stop and idles for a second. "It's a lot emptier than usual," he observes. So maybe the eerie emptiness _isn't_ just me.

"Oh. Yeah," Crow says. "There's this group that showed up recently. I don't know if they're religious, or just fucking weird, or what, but they have all these people in hoods and robes that are apparently just… drawing folks away into the middle of nowhere. Like a damn murder cult or something." He shakes his head. "I don't know. I've seen one or two of them around, and it feels like I'm hallucinating. Apparently they hang around main squares and stuff, callin' themselves 'Dark Signers'."

 _Oh_. There's a really long, uncomfortable pause. I think it might be Yusei wondering whether or not to let Crow in on the other reason we're here.

"...let's keep moving," Yusei remarks. So I follow him and Crow off deeper into the forest of broken up skyscrapers.

Eventually, we turn off the main dirt road and into this little row of smaller house-looking buildings, and we keep going until the ground starts to slope down and down and down, beneath rubble and curled metal rods reaching out of the ground like fingers. Suddenly, we're in near darkness, the only light coming from the fissure in the ceiling reaching out like a line pointing us to wherever we're going.

Eventually, the crack vanishes, and we're in total darkness for a couple of seconds until dim orange light starts up ahead and both Yusei and Crow slow to a stop. There's another level of ground beside us, high enough that I have to jump up onto it to reach it. An orange tent bathed in dim light stands along the side of the tunnel, and when I look a little closer toward a few dimly burning oil lamps, I see tile along the walls and a couple of carts of what I think might be tools near the stairwell I can make out to the left.

Somewhere beside me, Yusei suddenly flicks on a flood light that brightens the entire space with hard white light. It makes even Crow squint, and I see Yusei look around with something like disappointment on his face—until a person emerges from the tent and stops.

It takes the person a second to register the sight of the three of us, before they suddenly exclaim, " _Yusei_!"

Yusei's expression lightens almost immediately. "Oh, _jeez_ , Rally, I was worried you weren't here."

"Hey! _HEY_!" The person shouts. "Guys, Yusei's back!" They peel back the tent curtain. "WAKE UP! YUSEI'S BACK!"

I hear scrambling from the other side of the curtain, and three other people emerge from it. The first person, Rally, throws their arms around Yusei, and the other three are suddenly so enthusiastic that I blink and Yusei's on the ground because these other people went for a hug so quickly that they barreled him over.

"H-Hey, hi," Yusei's practically wheezing. "I thought _I_ was supposed to be worried about _you_ guys."

"Just let us be happy to see you in one piece!" One of them, with glasses and hair tied back in what I think might be cornrows, exclaims.

"Yeah, _Fortune Cup Champ_!" The second, the biggest of them, remarks.

"Hey, we've been worried about you for three whole months, pal! So let us have that!" The third, and the tallest, with a bandana tied around his forehead, shouts from the very top of the pile.

"Okay, _okay_ ," Yusei struggles. "Actually, though, I'm being crushed."

Jack Atlas betrayed him, and Crow's been somewhere for three or four years… In the meantime, Yusei must have been here with these people. It makes me feel so much better to know that he has these friends who love him enough to practically piledrive him when he comes home. He's not totally alone, the way I was afraid he would be. The person I learned so much about over the past few days doesnt deserve that.

"We're—missing somebody," Yusei says as his friends help him up off of the floor.

"Oh." The taller guy crosses his arms. "Ev went back to Martha's."

"What? Why?"

"We dunno," the larger guy adds. "He just went. None of us could stop him."

"Oh," Yusei says shortly. "He's… still upset, then."

"Yeah," the guy with the glasses exhales, "but he avoided getting locked in a shipping container with all of the rest of us."

" _Oh_ ," Yusei says again, a little flatter, a little more miffed this time. "I'm sorry, you guys. That's on me."

"Hey, don't blame yourself for that one!" Rally exclaims. "We're all out and home free! And we got _you_ back!"

"Well, thanks, Rally. I guess we have a lot to tell each other."

"Yeah, and you can explain Crow and the girl," the bandana guy scoffs.

"Hey to you, too, Blitz," Crow retorts.

"' _Girl's_ ' name is C," I chime. " _Hi._ "

"Why don't we all just sit down," Yusei begins, "take a load off, explain ourselves. We can do introductions and everything." He looks at me when he says, "I, for one, am pretty glad to be home."


	15. Something I See In You

_**A/N: So I know Crow has a criminal number somewhere (or maybe he doesn't, I actually can't remember), but, disclaimer, the one I wrote for him in this chapter is made up.**_

 ** _Enjoy!_**

* * *

I kind of lose track of time from the second we start interacting with these people. Glasses Guy offers to make breakfast, which is the earliest that the light, almost happy feeling in my stomach starts.

"So, we just have a lot of canned stuff," Glasses Guy admits. "But the stove works!"

"You don't have an icebox?" I ask.

He shakes his head.

"Yes we do?" Yusei cuts in, sounding bewildered.

"It um. It's broken."

Yusei heaves a sigh and kicks aside the tent flap to go inside. "I'll fix it."

"Yeah, we've been out a mechanic since Yusei left," Bandana Guy chimes.

"Two, actually, when Ev hit the road," Glasses Guy admits. "Not to mention the shipping container thing. Though, I think it was only a couple weeks ago that we went in there. When did it break again?"

"It was right _before_ the shipping container," Rally says. "We blew a circuit and the icebox died."

"So, yeah! We have canned kidney beans and some bread," Glasses Guy finishes. "Also maybe some other stuff. There's a box of cereal somewhere, but I don't know if it's not stale."

"It's okay, you guys eat if there's not enough," I say.

"C, if I have to force-feed you, you're eating!" I hear Yusei's voice say from somewhere further back in the tent, presumably from where he's gone to fix the ice box.

"I'm _fine_ ," I say, raising my voice enough so that he can hear me.

"In the past two days you've had four cups of coffee and a combined one entire cup of microwaveable ramen!" He calls. "I _will_ fight you on this, C!"

Crow suddenly puts a hand on my shoulder and starts pushing me toward the circle where everyone is sitting. "Okay, no more arguing. Also, one cup? Seriously?"

Heat crawls up my face. "I had half of one one night and half last night. Whatever. I just don't have that big of an appetite usually."

"Oh, yeah, trust me, no offense, but I can tell." He plops me down in between Rally and Bandana Guy. "Let's be real, your brother is going to kill every single one of us if we don't make you eat."

" _Brother_ ," Rally says absentmindedly. "Wait! You mean…"

"I thought you looked familiar!" Biggest Guy exclaims.

"Hold on!" Bandana Guy leans in a little. "You mean the—the blonde hair, it's not a dye job or a coincidence?"

"Nope, The Most Bitter Man In Satellite has a sister, folks," Crow says. He sits in between Bandana Guy and Biggest Guy.

"That's nuts! Why haven't we heard of you?"

"I, um… I was living in the city," I admit. "I lived with Martha and Crow and Yusei and my brother until I was, um… ten, I think. I got taken across the sound and I was there until Yusei and I met at the Fortune Cup."

"Taken, like… _taken_ taken?" Biggest Guy asks.

"Yeah, like, she got picked up off of the fucking front lawn and none of us ever mentioned her because we were pretty convinced she was dead," Crow says.

"Whoa," Glasses Guy mutters from over at the stove.

"You said your name was… um, C?" Rally asks. "I'm Rally." They point around the circle, starting with Bandana Guy. "That's Nerve." They point to Glasses Guy, who's up at the stove. "There's Blitz." Then, finally, to Biggest Guy next to Crow. "And that's Taka."

"Nice to meet you all," I say.

"So, what kinda name is C?" Nerve asks.

"It's a nickname," I tell him. "It's short for Cipher."

That makes even Crow's eyes bug out a little. "Whoa, okay… you didn't give yourself that name, did you?"

" _No_!" I say hotly.

Yusei emerges from the tent, fiddling with a screwdriver. "Yeah, no, she hates it."

"That was fast," I say.

"The short circuit loosened some bolts on the battery, and it needed a couple of wires spliced. Just needs ice and to be turned on. Somebody scootch over, make some room." He sits down in between Crow and Taka. "Anyways, avoid the C word."

"If I'd gotten to pick, I would've picked something normal," I say. "Something that has a way nicer meaning."

"Wait, so why is it your name?" Blitz calls from the stove.

"The guy that took me gave it to me," I say. "I don't… well, I don't have any memories."

"Okay. Damn," Nerve remarks. "So… how'd you end up here, then?"

"Yusei," I answer.

"Grew up with a girl who vanished, found one of age in the city that looks exactly like a friend of mine who lost his sister? I put two and two together," Yusei adds. "And C was more than ready to get the hell out."

"Sounds like the city isn't exactly ideal," Taka remarks.

"That's an understatement," Yusei scoffs. Then, he launches into the story of what happened when he left Satellite from the very beginning.

I learn, from start to finish, what a hassle traveling to the city was for him. I learn about the Pipeline, a garbage chute and the only ground path from the Satellite to Neo Domino, which apparently opens up for three minutes once a month for maintenance. Yusei details his first duel with Jack, in the Memorial Circuit, and Security detaining him and sending him to the Detention Center on Jack's word. He tells us about his time in the Detention Center, and Goodwin's intervention, breaking into an impound center to recover his duel runner, and being threatened into participating in the Fortune Cup. Then there's his duels there, and me, and the couple of days it took us to get here.

Oddly enough… He doesn't breathe a word about his mark or about the Dark Signers. How secret is he planning on keeping this?

Somewhere in between, Blitz finishes heating up food and splits it up between the seven of us. Even though I try to abstain out of spite, Yusei threatens to take apart Hiraeth if I don't eat, which eventually makes me give in.

The others spill to Yusei what they did while he was gone, which isn't a very long story. They do tell him about their time in the shipping container, though, and how the first thing they found out when they were let out was that he had won the Fortune Cup. Actually, they tell him, half of Satellite knows that he won the Fortune Cup. He's made himself a household name.

"Lovely," Yusei retorts. "My anonymity is dead now."

"Since when have you craved anonymity?" Crow retorts.

Yusei shoots him a look that says he wants to say something—but, for the first time since I've met him and I've seen that look, he keeps his mouth shut.

I think Crow notices it. But he, too, doesn't say anything.

For a while, the conversation launches into stuff about current events, or weather, or the people disappearing. Yusei looks uncomfortable through most of it, but Crow's talking up a storm like he can't be fazed.

The time keeps slipping by, and at some point a voice calls down from the stairwell up to our left, "HEY! YOU FOLKS AWAKE?"

Yusei stands, like he's eager to eject himself from the situation. "Saiga?"

"Hey, wait!" A man comes galloping down the stairs. "Yusei, is that you?"

The guy that comes into the light is tall and lean and in desperate need of a shave. He catches Yusei's hand in a handshake. "I didn't know you were back."

"Just got here this morning," Yusei tells him. "Thank you, really, for helping my friends."

"Don't mention it. Hope you left my place in prime condition, though."

"I did my dishes."

"Ha-ha." He makes his way over to our circle. "Hey guys." Then he sets his eyes on me. "And… you are?"

"I-I'm C," I stutter. "I'm a friend of Yusei's."

"Aren't we all. Name's Saiga."

"Nice to meet you."

Crow jumps to his feet. "Hey, I should probably join in this, too. I'm Crow."

"Crow and C, cool. Yusei's a friend collector."

"It's his life's work," Crow jokes.

"I'm glad you're all still down here," Saiga begins. "There are _still_ people going Houdini all over the place."

"Crow mentioned people are disappearing," Yusei mutters.

"Yeah," Crow remarks, "and I don't understand why Security—"

He's interrupted mid-sentence when something suddenly drops from the ceiling over the tracks, and lands on the ground with a tinny sort of sound. In the second it takes for all of us to look over in the direction of the sound, I can suddenly see white gas shooting upward out of whatever fell.

"The fuck," Saiga says flatly.

A big, booming voice, as if through a megaphone, suddenly says, " _DETAINEE CH5028, PLEASE EXIT WITH YOUR HANDS ABOVE YOUR HEAD! WE HAVE YOU SURROUNDED_!"

"God?" Crow asks, squinting a little up toward the voice.

Yusei throws him a very sour look. "What did you do?"

"Hey, don't look at me like I killed something, cuz I didn't. It's no big deal, I just need to rejam my marker. Mark _ers_? Markers."

" _Yeah,_ it's a big deal! We're surrounded by Security!"

"They're here for _you_?" I exclaim.

"Yeah, it's—whatever!" Crow throws his hands up. The white gas is starting to filter into the air around us, and when I breathe in, it burns my nose. "Time to run, I guess! Do you all know where my hideout is, near Daedalus?"

The others exchange looks. Rally, though, is nodding.

"Meet me there! I'm going to shake these idiots off, then we can rendezvous!"

Rally, who also has criminal mark, is the first to move. They must be the most capable. The others follow them at a run out the tunnel the way we came.

Crow motions for us to follow them. " _Go_!"

"Nice try," Yusei retorts. "I'm staying on you, and it looks like C is, too."

"Ahh, fine!" The three of us streak down toward our duel runners, and I'm trying to hold my breath to keep myself from breathing in the gas. Yusei shoots off first, followed by Crow, then backed by me.

"C!" Crow shouts over his shoulder. "Try your best to keep up! If we lose you, it won't be good!"

Speeding up makes me anxious—if I fall, I'll hit the ground harder and my duel runner will sustain more damage. But, if I don't, I'll lose Yusei and Crow in the middle of a place I don't know. Possibly still surrounded by Securities. And I have no idea where this 'rendezvous' place Crow shouted about is, either. The only thing I really can do is try to stay close.

We continue straight out of the tunnel, out and away from the smoke scurrying after us, until I find that we're above ground again. The sunlight is staggering; I don't know how many hours we spent down in the subway, chattering to each other, but it looks like it's definitely past mid-afternoon.

I follow Crow and Yusei up onto the highway, and for a second I'm wondering if we're planning on outrunning these Securities or facing them. How do things like this work in Satellite, anyways? And why are they after Crow, how bad of a thing did he do?

We take a pretty sharp turn up onto a higher causeway—the combination of being up so high and riding so fast is definitely not good for me right now—and I've nearly matched Yusei and Crow in speed. I could reach a hand to my left and touch Crow, I'm that close to him.

Suddenly, my duel screen lights up with an image of the back of a card. I'm about to try to shout over the wind something like, _what is this, what's happening_ , when Crow calls, "Looks like we're getting forced into a turbo duel! Yusei, you feel like throwing it back a little?"

"Do I have to?"

"It was a rhetorical question, you and I both know you're physically incapable of refusing a request to duel from anybody!" He whips his head around toward me. "Just keep keepin' up, C! We'll be done in no time!"

"Hey!" Yusei calls from across Crow. "Accept the request, it should be the first button up from the disk pedestal! On the left!"

"I'm not dueling, am I?" I shout. "I-I mean, I will if—"

"It'll be over quicker if either one of us handles it! Let's see how many Securities we have on us, anyways!"

I obey, and click the first button on the left. A mechanical voice says, " _RIDING DUEL PROTOCOL ENGAGED. AUTOPILOT ACTIVATED_ ".

 _Autopilot_. Oh, I didn't know about that. I still don't feel anywhere near comfortable removing my hands from the handlebars, but now I certainly feel better about going so damned fast.

I recognize the card on the screen when it flips over—Speed World 2, the Field Spell activated at the start of every turbo duel. I've never actually seen it in action.

Beside me, once Yusei and Crow accept the duel request, the world around us turns violet. The buildings, the road, the midday sun over my head; they all look almost like they could be made of candy. The deck in my wrist dealer suddenly shuffles, like it's preparing for me to use it.

A Security duel runner streaks past me, and a second barrels up past Yusei. So there are only two of them, then. How is this going to work? Crow takes one, Yusei takes the other? Maybe together? Is it possible to Tag or Royale duel on a duel runner?

Next to me, I see Crow's duel disk spring up higher. The duel disks, then, have their own turbo duel mode. On my duel screen, a double stack of life points appears—4000 for each… group? So it is possible to Tag turbo duel.

The first turn has been claimed by the Securities, it looks like. The one on the left is the very first to draw his hand, and I swivel my head to see Yusei and Crow do the same.

So, Himuro called Yusei dueling "a religious experience…" I mean, I would hope so. Because, if not, I think we all might get a criminal mark after this. I'm almost positive that's what running from the cops gets you. Does Crow even have the room on his face for one more?

To be fair, I'd have more faith in Yusei, being the Fortune Cup champion and all, if I'd actually seen him duel before this. And I still know next to nothing about Crow. But I think I would also be much more concerned about getting arrested if both Crow and Yusei didn't seem so utterly unfazed by all of this.

After drawing to officially begin his turn, the Security on the left tosses down his first card. "I summon Gate Blocker in Defense Position! Then, due to its special effect, I can Tribute Gate Blocker to summon Gate Blocker 2 from my hand in Defense Position!"

Gate Blocker reminds me of the picture on a card I've read about called Book of Moon—it stands like a big, sturdy metal block with a watching eye, golden ribbing streaking across it like great, shiny veins. Gate Blocker 2 is of a similar look, but it watches down over us with two wide red eyes rather than one.

On my duel screen, it reads that Gate Blocker 2 boasts 200 ATK and 3000 DEF. I wrench a hand free to scroll for its details, and I find that its special effect prevents Yusei or Crow from gaining Speed Counters from the effects of Speed World 2. That'll prevent them from reaping any of Speed World 2's perks, and it'll keep them from using Speed Spells. Depending on how many Speed Spells Yusei and Crow have, or even how often they use Speed Spells in turbo duels, this could be either kinda bad or it could be no big deal.

"I set three cards face down! Then I end my turn!"

"All right! Mind if I take the first pick?" Crow shouts at Yusei.

"Be my guest!"

"Awesome!" He draws.

Before Crow can get another word out, the leftmost Security flips a facedown. "I activate the Trap, Full Throttle! Whenever the effect of Speed World activates, we gain one additional Speed Counter along with the one we already receive! Then, I'll activate Speed Edge! If we have more Speed Counters than you, you take damage equal to the difference times 300!"

Oh… wow, that was a quick play. Now both Securities get double Speed Counters every turn, and my duel screen says that Speed Edge is a Continuous Trap—they can reactivate it and keep chipping away at Yusei and Crow's LP every turn.

I find myself flinching when a blast of white energy flies back toward us, but I don't feel anything. It takes me a second to realize that I'm spectating a common duel. No psychics, no Physicalizers, in sight at all. The warm, borderline ticklish heat from the beam is almost pleasant.

On my duel screen, Yusei and Crow's combined LP ticks down to 3400.

"You done?" Crow exclaims. " _Okay_! I summon Blackwing - Bora the Spear in Attack Position!"

He runs _Blackwings_? I've read extensively about swarm decks like his, but I've also heard that they're exceptionally rare. And, after what Yusei said about us finding cards in trash heaps, am I really supposed to believe that Crow somehow found a whole deck of Blackwings in a dumping ground?

"Due to its special effect, I can also summon Blackwing - Gale the Whirlwind from my hand in Attack Position! Then, I'll activate Gale's secondary special effect to halve the DEF of your Gate Blocker 2 until the end of my turn!"

That should enable Crow to take out Gate Blocker's sudden 1500 DEF points with Bora the Spear's 1700 ATK.

"I activate my facedown," the leftmost Security interjects, "Defender's Mind! This allows me to double the DEF of every monster on our field!"

"Ah, whatever! In that case, I tune Bora the Spear with Gale the Whirlwind to Synchro Summon my good pal, Blackwing Armor Master!"

Okay, I trust Crow's skills now. He pulled a hand with two separate possibilities, and either one does significant damage. If that Security hadn't activated Defender's Mind, Crow would've taken out Gate Blocker. But now that he's summoned Blackwing Armor Master in all its shiny, black-feathered glory, he can set things up for Yusei to make a move and try to destroy it.

"Blackwing Armor Master, attack Gate Blocker 2!"

"Idiot!" The rightmost Security retorts. "You're 500 ATK too short!"

"Oh, I'm sorry, was I done?" Crow scoffs. "Due to Blackwing Armor Master's special ability, I can negate all battle damage I take and prevent him from being destroyed! Plus, I can stick a Wedge Counter into your Gate Blocker!"

Blackwing Armor Master dives forward and drives a shiny golden splint into Gate Blocker 2. The seven pages on Blackwings I read called this effect "the Wedge strategy". If he removes the Wedge Counter from Gate Blocker during his turn, Yusei can reduce Gate Blocker 2's DEF to 0. Presumably, that'll be right before he mounts an attack.

"I set two cards face down!" Crow calls. "Then I end my turn!"

The Security to the right draws. As we shift through the Standby Phase, I watch the Securities' SPC fly up from 2 to 4 via the effect of Full Throttle. At the same time, Speed Edge reactivates and sends a beam of white light toward us; Yusei and Crow's combined LP drops to 2200. Defender's Mind, too, is still in play. That doubles Gate Blocker's DEF and makes it 6000.

"I summon Gate Defender in Defense Position! As long as this card is on the field, we can negate one attack per turn!"

I wonder if Securities always run this route in duels—an almost overbearing defensive strategy, I mean. I'm more curious to see if Yusei has cards in his hand that can make a dent in that strategy. If he lives up to his hype. If he doesn't, well… I do the math in my head. They'll have 400 Life Points this turn, which means that it'll be the last turn unless Yusei can make a real change in the look of the field.

"I'll end my turn!"

It's Yusei's turn to draw; both Full Throttle and Speed Edge reactivate on the Standby, putting the Securities at 6 SPC and Yusei and Crow at 400 LP.

"I summon Turbo Synchron in Attack Position!"

That's… a Warrior-type? Or a Machine-type? It sounds familiar. The deck he runs must be one of those.

"I'm going to activate my facedown, Level Returner!" Crow interjects. "This card allows me to reduce Blackwing Armor Master's Level by 2!"

Reducing a LV 7 to a LV 5? Hm. That's interesting.

"Now I'll tune Turbo Synchron with Blackwing Armor Master to Synchro Summon Turbo Warrior!"

Oh wow. That's _really_ interesting. Three or four years Yusei and Crow have been separated, and yet Crow somehow knows well enough what cards are in Yusei's deck and what strategies he might be forming to set a card like Level Returner that'll so _specifically_ cater to the needs of the cards in Yusei's hand.

"Even if your monster didn't have less ATK than Gate Blocker 2's DEF, Gate Defender prevents it from even mounting an attack!" The Security on the right shouts.

"That's fine! Turbo Warrior's special effect prevents the effects any monsters LV 6 or lower from impacting it!"

Ah, so that negates Gate Defender's ability. And the Wedge Counter removes Gate Blocker's defensive hurdle.

"I'm gonna activate my second facedown now," Crow calls, "Ebon Arrow! By taking off 500 ATK from Turbo Warrior, Turbo Warrior gains the ability to inflict Piercing Damage as well as inflict damage to you equal to the original DEF of a monster it destroys!"

"Now that Crow's set that up," Yusei prefaces, "I'm going to remove the Wedge Counter from Gate Blocker 2! Due to the effect of the Wedge Counter and Blackwing Armor Master, I now get to reduce Gate Blocker 2's DEF to 0!"

I'm fascinated by the dynamic I'm witnessing. The two of them barely talked, barely even interacted, when we were down in the subway with Rally, Taka, Nerve, Blitz, and Saiga. As a matter of fact, there was tension—similar to the tension that I feel every time Yusei talks about Jack Atlas. And, yet, right here I'm realizing that Crow must know Yusei better than any of those others could hope to.

"Turbo Warrior, destroy Gate Blocker 2!"

Turbo Warrior extends a huge red and silver fist and smashes it down onto Gate Blocker 2. On my duel screen, the Securities' combined LP diminishes to 2000, and Ebon Arrow reactivates. They take damage equal to the original DEF of Gate Blocker 2—2000—and just like that, the duel is over.

Instantly, my duel runner jolts underneath me, and I scramble to maintain my balance. The autopilot disengaged, I realize. In front of us, though, I watch both the Security duel runners burst open with white smoke and tumble down into the causeway in front of us. I nearly wipe sideways off of Hiraeth trying to tail Yusei and Crow past them, and I'm almost positive that the only thing keeping me upright from that point on is a combination of the unyielding fear of dying and sheer fucking willpower.

We drive for a little while longer, no words exchanged, until we reach a cliffside sort-of area where I can see out toward the ocean. Out toward the skyline of what I think must be Neo Domino.

When we stop, Crow dismounts and starts whooping, like some kind of self-congratulations. "Haven't had a duel like that in years! You learned some new shit in the city, Yusei!"

" _He_ learned new shit?" I retort, wrenching my helmet off of my head to try and air out the sweat collecting on the back of my neck. "You set a facedown so specific to that situation that I'm not convinced you can't read minds, or something!"

"No mind reading, just really good intuition!" Crow says, cracking a smile.

"We're just a good team," Yusei exhales.

"But, really, no wonder you kicked Jack into next week. Looks like those years did you a lot of good." Crow leans against his duel runner. "Actually, I forgot to ask about that. What's up with Jack?"

"What do you mean?"

"Word on the street's been saying he went into hiding after you beat him. Press found out he was from Satellite, and he hasn't been seen around since that news started making paper routes."

" _Went into hiding_ ," Yusei repeats sourly. "God, give me a break. He's better than that."

"Wait," Crow says, "are you not salty about the duel runner anymore?"

"I'll be salty until he apologizes," Yusei tells him. "But it sounds like something's up with him. He's never been one to hide from anything. Though I guess I should've expected him to go home with his tail between his legs at any mention of Satellite. It's not like we didn't know he was embarrassed by us."

That statement, and even the way he says it, makes me cringe.

"Every time you mention Jack," I say softly, "I want to meet him less and less."

Yusei manages something that's almost a laugh.

"Jack's… a real piece of work," Crow sighs. "I can't really explain it, or—or _him_."

"Let's just hope you don't have to meet him," Yusei remarks. "And, look, I couldn't stop him from doing what he did. That, and every price he has to pay for it, is his burden to bear. But after all of it, I don't think I know him anymore. I can't be sure I ever have."

Crow pins his eyes silently on the ground, and for a moment all I can hear is the distant sound of water. "...it's going to get dark soon. We should get to my place."

"Fine," Yusei says. "We'll follow you."

The three of us take up a line again, Crow leading, and drive up around the coast; if I leaned, I might topple off into the water. The waves look so serene and gentle—different than the things I've read about them.

I think about what I told Yusei about the beach. What he told me about having a place of his own. He's told me a lot about himself already, more than I think he must usually tell people, but I still feel so far away from whoever he is. I don't know who to blame for that. Crow or Jack Atlas. Or maybe even my brother. I don't know. But it feels like Yusei has too many facets to handle by himself. He's so nonchalantly come around to take on this Signer thing that I find it near impossible to try to believe that he's as calm on the inside as he seems on the outside. I can only think of it having to be similar to me and how I've come to cope, by bottling my thoughts up so I'm the only one they bother.

I guess he's like Aki, in that respect. I can't be sure I know what's real.

Then again, this is a person I've known for a little more than four days. I have _so_ much more to learn than the small things I've come to know.

As we come inland, I see something curling into the air in the shape of a shallow 'U'. It almost looks like a big pipe. The sun dropping below the buildings up ahead of us turns it black. Crow and Yusei, ahead of me, slow to a crawl as we come into a circle of little metal shacks with rooftops made of wood and sheets of what I think is tin.

I see Rally first, and the sunlight as it reflects in their russet hair. They raise a hand to wave at us, which catches the attention of Taka, Blitz, Nerve, and Rally. As I pull to a stop with Crow and Yusei, the last thing I expect happens: a group of children comes scurrying out into the open, making a beeline for Crow.

"Hey, hey! I need some room!" Crow dismounts, removes his helmet, and starts reaching out to ruffle hair. "Let me breathe, ya little monsters!"

"Crow! Didja have a good trip?"

"Did you bring us presents?"

"Why do you always want presents? Isn't my pretty face enough for you?" Crow puts his hands on his hips; I count five children in all gathered around him. "Besides, I brought you presents last time!"

Does… does he watch them? Or what?

"Hey, if it counts, I brought some friends!" Crow makes a grandiose gesture out toward Yusei and me. "Look! This is my friend Yusei Fudo, he's the guy that won the Fortune Cup! Local hero, straight to my left side!"

Yusei, next to me, very audibly sighs and wrenches his helmet off as the kids scramble around to him, barking squeaky, excited questions about the Fortune Cup and Jack Atlas and if he could maybe please give them his autograph.

I remember what he said earlier about anonymity, but he also seems to be putting on a smile for these kids. A tired smile, sure, but he's making an effort.

If I got two seconds alone with him and asked him to tell me what's on his mind, I wonder if he would tell me.

While the kids are distracted with Yusei, I pull my duel runner off toward one of the shacks and park it there. Then I peel my backpack off and set it down on the ground, only now realizing how long I've been carrying it.

Crow slaps a hand down on my shoulder, and it makes me flinch. "Thanks for going along with us back there."

"Do you make a habit of running from the cops?" I say.

He laughs. "The marks are probably big hints for that, huh?"

"More or less." I remember what Yusei said about being judged, just for the mark. "What are they for?"

"I steal a lot of cards," he says nonchalantly. "Like a whole lot. But they're for my kids."

"...they give you marks for taking cards?"

"They give you marks for a lot of stuff here, C."

I pause. "Where did these kids come from?"

"Orphans. I look after them, and I will for every second that they need me."

"You're…"

"What?" He cracks a grin. "Wonderful? Dashing? Heroic?"

" _Humble_ ," I retort. He laughs. "You're a good guy, Crow."

"Ah, thanks. Glad I've got one vote validating my morals."

"Crow?" Saiga shouts from across the yard between shacks. "It's getting darker, we should probably set up for the night!"

"Gotcha, I have some stuff!" He inclines his head for me to follow him. "C'mon, I'll teach you how to start a fire."

I shuffle along behind him to meet Saiga and Yusei's friends—Crow delegates tasks, telling the others where he's hidden things like bedrolls, and we find a spot where the ground is soft enough for Crow to start digging a makeshift fire pit. He talks me absentmindedly through things like the best types of wood to use, how to keep the fire from spreading, and what flint looks like.

By the time he gets flames going, we're almost in total darkness, and the others have set up bedrolls in a circle around the pit. Crow leaves me to stoke the fire, or otherwise poke it with a stick, and somehow when I'm looking around and trying to find the shadows of the others, I find myself staring up at the sky.

I've memorized star charts. But I've never once seen stars. And I never dreamed of seeing them like this, like splatters of paint or diamonds spread across dark fabric. Whorls of white and blue and purple, glittering cloud bursts of dim light streaking across the sky like ribbons of spray paint.

"First time seeing stars?" Yusei's voice breaks me out of it. "Good you're seeing them here. They don't look like this from the city."

"W-Why not?"

"Too many lights. Stars and nebulas are so dim that manufactured light drowns them out in big urban areas."

"This is the first time I've seen fire naturally, too," I tell him. "I've only ever seen it as Divine's creation." I steal a glimpse at him; he's not looking at the stars, he's looking at me. "You know, I think I finally realized today just how many things he took from me."

"I hope he dies," Yusei says, no emotion coloring his voice. "And I hope you're there to see it."

I don't know if I should offer that a 'thank you', or what… But when I look at him, at the firelight reflecting in his big sad eyes, I hear myself say, "Are you doing all right?"

He hesitates.

"You don't have to elucidate. Just a yes or a no is okay. No details."

"...I'll let you know when I figure it out."

I turn my eyes back to the fire. My stick's half burnt, so I toss it into the flames. The heat surges forward and seems to soak into my fingers, sending a warm heat down into my stomach.

"You're good, C." Crow brushes past me, patting a hand on my head as he goes. "Pick a bedroll, any bedroll. You ever been camping?"

"This'll be my first time," I confess.

"Well, now that we have a fire, we'll tell all sorts of creepy ghost stories. Give you the full experience."

"Fun," I say, standing to pick a place to sleep. I land right next to Crow; the bedroll is squishy, kind of like foam, but if I feel around a little bit more I realize that the material inside of it must be closer to something like cloth.

"So!" Crow claps his hands together. "Any good creepy tales to tell?"

"I know one about a haunted scarecrow!" Taka declares.

"Oh, be quiet, that one's not scary at all," Blitz retorts.

"Are we _actually_ going to attempt shitty campfire stories?" Saiga scoffs.

"Well, why not?"

"If you need a story," Yusei murmurs.

All eyes turn on him.

"It's no ghost story, but I think… I should let you in on something." Yusei starts peeling his glove off. "When I was in Neo Domino, I came into something. Or, I guess, a thing came into me." He shows his mark. "I… I had this vision. Of Satellite getting leveled. And, I'm not totally sure what it entails, but I know that this whole thing is a lot bigger than I thought it was in the beginning."

I hug my knees close and I listen to him explain to the others about the Signers and the Crimson Dragon. The five marked people. Goodwin being in on everything. I mostly zone out through the questions and the little sprinklings of disbelief from the others while trying to figure out why he waited this long to say anything.

I only get drawn back to reality when I hear Crow say, "Hey, I'm here for whatever this is. I'm not gonna let you go smashing through it alone."

I think the silence that follows is the heaviest I've been in all day.

I'm thankful for one of the children, who skitters over to us and asks Crow for a bedtime story. The other four children aren't far behind her.

"Story, Crow, story!"

"The one about the bridge!"

"Fine, fine!" He stands and stretches his arms over his head. "There was once an extremely poor, small island. The people of the island weren't allowed to leave, so they could only look out at a bigger, richer island neighboring them."

"Satellite and Neo Domino!" One of the kids interrupts.

"Shh! I'm telling the story!" Crow remarks. "Long before we were born, there was a man who tried to save Satellite. He used to gaze at the city from here, riding on a Duel Runner that nobody had ever seen before. One day he stopped staring from that spot, as he realized what he had to do. He took on the task of building a bridge to the city: the Daedalus Bridge."

Crow points somewhere beyond us, and all of the kids follow his finger. I finally realize what the shadow I saw earlier is. A bridge. Satellite, trying to connect itself to the mother city that never loved it.

"Everybody all thought this man was a crazy fool, but he never gave up," Crow continues. "The people who mocked him later began to think he might be able to do it after seeing the progress he was making. The people began to help the man make the bridge. Then, the man who began the construction became wanted by Security. All of his helpers gave up, figuring it would be hopeless once the man was captured."

The kids have started leaning over each other; even Taka, Rally, Nerve, and Blitz look engrossed.

"He got cornered by Security and had two options, be caught and spend the rest of his life in jail or become a legend while alive! Of course, he took his second option! He rode his Duel Runner along the bridge and flew off the end!"

"But did he die?!" Rally exclaims.

"Nobody knows!" Crow says, addressing the children. "But you all know where he lives on, don't you?"

"IN OUR HEARTS!" Five tiny voices shout.

"Okay, okay!" Crow starts to usher them away, toward one of the shacks behind us. "Now you _have_ to go to bed!"

"What a nice story," Taka sighs. "I totally forgot about it."

"Me too," Rally says. "Everyone likes a little bit of bedtime story encouragement, I guess."

"If only the bridge was actually completed," Nerve tosses in, "then we could cross and people wouldn't have to die for this dump."

"That mark of yours," Saiga pipes up all of a sudden, inclining his head toward Yusei, "sounds like that kind of legend, if it's to be believed."

"I'm no savior," Yusei tells him. His voice sounds hollow. "...we should all try to get some sleep."

The others seem to agree—to obey—but I stay sitting up, even as Yusei and the others lie down.

Not a savior, he says. But he let me out.


	16. Sucker Punch

I have a bad time falling asleep. It's not because of the weather, or even the sleeping outside part. The campfire's still going, too, and the crackling sound of the flames aren't really helping.

I can't shake this feeling that we're waiting out the end. Of… of something. The end of Satellite, or I don't know what. And I don't know why I feel like I have a hundred pairs of eyes on me.

After spending who-knows-how-long lying on a bedroll and staring up at the sky, counting millions of stars I've never had the chance to see, I get up and shuffle away from the fire, toward Hiraeth. I can see both alleys leading into Crow's little hideaway from where Hiraeth is parked, which makes me feel significantly better about the feeling watched situation.

I carried the pack Seria gave me all day, and gods, it's heavy. I think right now is the first time I've been able to actually look in it. My handheld simulator is packed in with all of my schematics notebooks, some dried food, a silver canister full of what I assume is water, and even a change of shoes and a few extra shirts. I crack into the water almost immediately after realizing how thirsty I am.

I wonder what Seria is doing now. What Divine did when he found out that I was gone, besides come to try to bring me back. Here, I can't say that I have the same feeling I had in Daimon, where I was antsy to go outside because of how close we were to Arcadia… there's an ocean between us, here. But if he took me from Satellite before, is it ever really possible to be free from him?

Thinking about the possibility of him coming to look for me here makes my stomach start to hurt. I power on my simulator to try to take my mind off of it, and to see if it's still functional. Last time I picked it up, I'd only temporarily replaced the circuits to make sure the screen illuminated. What it really needs is to be completely gutted, but I'm running out of notebook space to blueprint a new model.

Even before I've figured out whether the simulator still works, I have to power it down anyways, because now I hear something. I always heard street noise at night in Neo Domino, but here's it's amazingly, deathly quiet. I hear something like—like wheels on dirt.

I stuff my simulator back into my pack and jump up from where I'm sitting next to my duel runner. Yusei and his duel runner are frozen, silhouetted by the firelight, and staring at me. I wonder if I startled him—I was sitting around the back of Hiraeth, on the side closest to one of the sheds rather than the fire—but then I realize what he's doing.

"Where are _you_ going?" I say, my voice somewhere in between a whisper and an inside sort of voice.

"What are _you_ doing awake?"

"I asked first," I tell him. "You weren't seriously just going to leave?"

"This part is for me to deal with," he says. "Remember our deal? You stay."

"Ooooooooh no," I retort. "I said when you _glow_. I don't see any glowing, so I'm coming with you whether you like it or not. You can't just pretend the mark and all the other stuff doesn't exist for a whole day, and then freaking _leave_."

"C, why can't you understand—"

"Oh, hey, don't I get an invitation to the midnight powwow?" Suddenly Crow's next to me. "He gets like this too much, C, I wouldn't hold it against him."

"Not you too," Yusei groans.

"Look, man. This is the first time I've seen you in years." Crow slaps a hand on my shoulder, and I flinch just out of instinct. "C hasn't seen you in years, then again, there's the memory thing, but let's just put a pin in that. I know you're upset with me for skipping out, and I'm sorry. We've both had a lot going on, but I'm not going to leave this time and let you take shit on alone. And you can't just run away without us. We're your friends, it's our job to make sure you don't get yourself into trouble."

"Crow, this isn't just some _duel_ ," Yusei snaps. "Or anything like it. There's something powerful in the works here, and I might be part of it, but I'm not even sure that qualifies me to try to take care of it. When these people duel, they do it with lives on the line. All of the damage is real. _Bad_ things happen. If you get involved in this, you could _die_."

He—he mentioned the real duel damage thing before. But _death_? That was never part of the deal.

Crow says, "Oh, well, then. I had a good run. Seventeen years is acceptable."

" _Crow_! This isn't a _joke_!"

His voice breaks. It makes Crow's joking facade vanish.

Yusei turns away from us. "I don't want anyone else involved. I've had too many people get hurt because of me."

I wonder how long this has been on his mind. If he's been suppressing it because he wanted to make sure his friends were okay first. After Goodwin told him all, was he pretending not to care to let me keep worrying about Divine? I mean, for gods' sakes, Goodwin told him he had to save a whole district. _Neo Domino_ , even. That's millions and millions of people, and he's here alone because he insisted he should be the only one to come check things out.

"I'm coming with you, Yusei," Crow states, "and you're not changing my mind."

"That's a risk I'm not willing to let you take, Crow."

"Hey," I say softly; Crow and Yusei both look toward me. "I know you're scared other people will get hurt. But you have to let us at least be there to help you if you need it. Do you remember what you told me back in the city? _Nothing worth doing is without risk_. Just like you don't want anything happening to us, we don't want anything happening to you."

"And you can't always fight your battles all by yourself," Crow adds. "I know you, Yusei, and I know you like to take the independent approach. But we have things to protect, too. Like my kids and our dump of a home that I actually love a lot?"

"And you," I say.

Yusei cuts his eyes to me.

"You can say that you're nothing but trouble, but I kind of think you saved my life," I tell him. "And even when I somehow repay that debt, I'm going to remember it. I don't know who I am or even remotely what happened to me—I was trapped and nobody thought to help me. But you did. You knew me, you offered to bring me here. You could've done nothing and I would still be in Arcadia right now, doing who-knows-what, but you didn't. You were the one who let me _out_."

"If you lose, we lose Satellite," Crow agrees. "But before we lose that, we lose you."

Yusei stares at me for a long time. I listen to the ghostly silence, broken only a little by the crackling fire somewhere behind us.

"There's no backing out of this," he says finally. "Both of you realize that. Right?"

"I'm sure we wouldn't be here if we didn't," Crow replies. "I'm ready to fight."

"Me too," I add. "I'm with you all the way."

"...okay," Yusei sighs. "Fine."

"Awesome." Crow beelines for his duel runner and wheels it over toward us. "Where are we headed?"

"The B.A.D."

"Ugh, are you serious?" Crow groans. The three of us start to roll our duel runners away from the campsite—away from Rally, Taka, Blitz, Nerve, and Saiga, still tucked away in bedrolls around the fire. "What are we going there for?"

"It's where the Reactor he told me about is," Yusei tells him. "I'm pretty sure of it, at least."

"That's where Goodwin wanted you to go? Right?" I say. "That's where the Dark Signers are?"

"You're not seriously going to fight them all at once," Crow scoffs. "By yourself."

"I'm going to do… something."

"Good thing we're coming with you," Crow mutters. "How's your dueling game, C?"

"Well, we'll find out, I guess," I admit.

Crow laughs a little. "Hey, the optimism is good."

Once the three of us find our way out of the hideout and into an open cross section of streets, Yusei and Crow start up their duel runners. Hiraeth springs to life underneath me, and I hold onto it for dear life as I follow Crow and Yusei up an empty, cracked road.

I'm still not great at it, but riding feels more familiar than ever and now I'm not lagging as far behind as I was before the Turbo Duel. I just hope I don't absolutely wipe out trying to dodge some of the stuff cluttering up the streets. I keep my eyes trained on the black of Crow's runner in front of me, and Yusei just a little ways ahead of him.

Crow definitely seems like a glass-half-full kind of guy. I admire him for that, and for the way he seems to care about Yusei. He admitted to knowing Yusei was upset with him for all that time apart, even apologized for it, which I suppose is more than Jack ever did. After what Yusei told me about Jack, I was scared that Yusei didn't have anybody he knew super well, like he seemed to know Jack, that he could count on. Whether or not he meant to clue me into it, the conversation we had where Yusei talked about Jack told me that what happened between them really hurt him. I don't know what that would feel like.

Unless… I did that to Aki.

I try to shake away the thought. Aki and I had things separating us—we had Divine standing in between us at every interval. Meanwhile, Yusei grew up with Jack and with Crow. They must know him like the backs of their hands. Anyways, I'm glad Crow is around.

As I start learning more and more about Yusei, though, I find my feelings getting more and more mixed as I try to figure him out. He struck me as a loner when I first met him—content to fight his own battles and keep to himself most of the time. Now I'm starting to get that it's the opposite. He fights _everyone's_ battles. Whatever chose him to fight for Satellite turned that need to fight for everyone into a double-edged sword. He thinks that all of the world's problems are his now.

And it sounds like he believes he put other people in bad positions because of that. Whether or not that's the truth… now he wants to take on all of those world-sized problems alone.

The three of us are going at a pretty quick pace, until all of the buildings around us start to thin out and a thick fog descends onto the road. Yusei slows down considerably, which makes Crow and me do the same.

"Where the hell did the fog come from?" Crow shouts.

"It can't be coastal!" Yusei shouts back. "In this weather, it'd have to roll in from the harbor! But we're too far inland for that!"

"So where the hell did it come from?"

"Whoa, whoa, what's _that?_ " I exclaim. I wrench a hand free from a handle to point at something I see in the distance—something bright, luminescent, and violet.

"...wait, what the hell?" Crow shouts.

"I don't know, but—" Yusei frees his hand from his accelerator and holds up his arm to show us the glowing red sigil on his arm, "—I think we're in the right place!"

The big purple thing makes this feeling of dread settle in my stomach. Even if it's not dangerous, why do I get the feeling that there's something out here that is?

We get close enough to the big purple thing that it towers up over us like a ghostly violet giant. Then, suddenly, it vanishes. Yusei careens to a stop, and Crow pulls up next to him. I dig my boot down into the silt to slow myself down and stop to Crow's right.

"Why are we stopping?" Crow asks.

"There's something here," I murmur. "It feels like we're being watched."

"Some _one_ ," Yusei clarifies. "I definitely don't think we're alone out here."

"You think we're getting close to those Dark Signers?" Crow remarks.

"It feels like."

Well. I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels like there are eyes on us. I'm glad Yusei can sense more than I can with that mark of his, but it also unsettles me that I don't know what to expect out of this. How late in the night is it? It's dark, kind of spooky out here with no one around, and the fog feels like it's made the balmy air temperature drop by at _least_ twenty degrees.

Around us, the terrain has turned rocky and bare. It looks like the site of a nuclear meltdown. It's been seventeen years since Satellite separated from Neo Domino, and still not a single thing is growing here. Bits and pieces of what must have been old buildings are all I can see, protruding from the ground like gravestones. There are rocky hills rising up on all sides of us—some closer than others—and the almost zigzag patterns of the hills make me think that this part of the land was formed by something like a sinkhole. I find it hard, almost impossible, to believe that only a tsunami caused all of this damage. From the look of it, the explosion Goodwin mentioned seems like it was _way_ more capable of doing this than water. In any case, we must be in the right place.

I scan the hills, finding the same picture every direction I look, until I see this… I don't know, silhouette, standing out over some of the rocks.

"Yusei," I say. And I point. "There's someone up there."

He and Crow both look toward the shape, and suddenly it ramps down lower onto a cascade of rocks nearer to us. It's—a person on a duel runner, I realize. When it gets close enough that I can make out much more than just its shape, it speaks.

"If it isn't Yusei! And you brought friends! Crow, what a wonderful surprise! And widening your friend group with a psychic? That's a new one!"

It's a male voice—but I almost think that whoever it belongs to can't be much more than just a boy. Can't be much older than me. How does he know Yusei and Crow?

"Who are you?" Yusei demands. "How do you know us?"

"Have you really forgotten about me? Old _friend_?" The figure rips off his heavy looking cloak and throws it to the ground. I don't recognize the boy—he's lean and silver-haired and as pale as death—but Yusei and Crow give audible reactions that make me realize that they must know him.

" _Kiryu_?" Yusei breathes.

"You're alive!" Crow exclaims. He sounds relieved—but where did this Kiryu person go to make Crow and Yusei think he was dead? "What happened to you?"

"I've been through hell and back, thanks to Yusei! And I'm here to finally settle that score!" He flips a duel runner helmet off of the ground next to him and into his hand. After he pulls it on, he revs his engine, and it's so loud that it makes my bones rattle around. I can feel something reaching up underneath the earth, but it isn't anything like psychic power.

Crow shouts as a line of violet fire suddenly springs up out of the ground between him and Yusei—I blink the sudden bright light away until my eyes have adjusted a little, and I see that the fire stretches out ahead of us for what looks like miles. The fog's gone, at least, but the air's warm again and it smells almost of sulfur.

"Ready for a little _consolation_ duel?" The boy, Kiryu, laughs. He's beyond the fire, too; his duel runner's almost twice as large as Yusei's and covered in strange orange tribal shapes, reminiscent of Yusei's mark.

Speaking of marks… Kiryu has one glowing on his arm, too. It's sort of hard to see behind the violet flames, but I can see its faint glow behind the dancing light of the fire line.

"Are you… one of them?" Yusei marvels.

"What? A Dark Signer?" He grins, his smile wide and happy and devoid of any real warmth. "Look at you, catching on quickly! And, no more of those ridiculous drones—the fool you fought in Neo Domino was only a fraction of what I am!"

I remember Yusei mentioning that—the late night duel he had with someone else bearing a mark. But it… wasn't a real Dark Signer? This Kiryu person is?

"Kiryu, what happened to you?"

"Ah, ah, it's a little late for catch-up!" Kiryu tsks. "I've been looking forward to this for a long time!"

He whirls his duel runner around and starts off in the other direction, landing himself somewhere behind Yusei, before he skids to a stop and revs his engine again. Almost like a challenge.

I can't see Yusei's face from here—he's looking away and the fire makes it hard to see any details on the other side of it—but it takes him a second to reply, and when he does, his voice is strained. "...if you're a Dark Signer, then I have to beat you!"

Kiryu revs his engine again. "I'm looking forward to finally killing you!"

Is it just my imagination? I think those words made Yusei hesitate before punching his accelerator and speeding off down the length of the line of fire. Kiryu follows him—they're going to turbo duel.

" _Killing_ ," I repeat under my breath. "He's not really… going to try to kill him?"

Crow doesn't answer me; maybe he's having the same thoughts I am. Yusei, and all his talk about life and death before. If you get involved in this, you could die.

If he loses, he dies, I realize.

I dismount my duel runner to examine the fire. It isn't even warm underneath my fingers. As a matter of fact, it feels biting cold, even through my heavy leather glove. And it's solid, so my hand can't push through it. It doesn't feel like anything I could try to Waste, either.

"C, let's get a better look at it," Crow says. "It looks like it goes on forever."

"All right," I say. I get back on my duel runner and follow Crow up a hill for a long time. To my left, the fire line looks like it leads into something much, much bigger. Something that I still can't see the entirety of.

We climb and climb, Hiraeth's wheels clutching clumsily into dirt and rocks, and I almost fall when we reach the top of the hill Crow is leading us up. Actually, Hiraeth topples over, but I jump up off of it quick enough that I don't actually fall with it.

"You're a new rider," Crow says as I heave Hiraeth up, "aren't you?"

"Is it that obvious?" I ask.

"Actually, you're pretty impressive for someone who's brand new. Where'd you get the runner?"

"One of my caretakers gave it to me for the journey to Satellite," I say. "I built a simulator and did all the research, but I only started actually riding a few days ago."

"A few _days_ —jeez, look at you." Crow dismounts his duel runner and pulls his helmet off. "This doesn't look good. But what the hell is it?"

I stand with him and look over the ridge; the fire stretches around for a long time, forming something like a duel circuit. I see now that the light is reflected in the sky over us. And the shape…

"I know what that is!" I exclaim.

"Huh? Really?"

"It's a Nazca Line!" I say. "I've read about them before—they're lines that were supposed to be etched into the earth by ancient Peruvian cultures to try to ask things of their gods. That one's called The Man."

"So Kiryu has a freaking _Nazca Line_ on his arm, is that it?"

So he saw the mark, too. "What do archeological markings have to do with all of this? The Dark Signers and… and what?"

"I don't know." Crow shakes his head. "But I'm tapping into their frequency. We have to make sure Yusei is okay."

Crow flicks through his duel runner's settings until his duel screen illuminates with a layout of the field. The audio crackles pitifully.

"Crow… who is that guy?" I say. "How do you and Yusei know him?"

"We used to be friends," Crow answers, sounding disgruntled. "Back when we were younger, we were in a Duel Gang together. Me, Jack, Yusei… Kiryu was our leader."

I don't know for sure what a Duel Gang is, but I'll take from context clues. Gang that probably fights via dueling. "...what happened?"

"Kiryu was obsessed with finding a challenge that would satisfy his need for competition. He had us take out every other Duel Gang in Satellite, and when that wasn't enough, he tried taking on the entire Satellite division of the Bureau. When we wouldn't help him, he wanted to do it all on his own. He _killed_ somebody—some random Security, and we knew he had taken things too far. So we had to turn him in. He got taken to the Detention Center and we never saw him again after that. Until now, at least."

So what happened to him, then? How did he get from there to being a Dark Signer?

Crow fixes the audio input, and as the speakers in his duel runner blare to life, it sounds like Yusei is halfway in through his turn.

"...activate Speed Warrior's special effect! During the Battle Phase of the turn he's summoned, I can double his ATK!"

"Not quite, old friend!" Kiryu's voice says. "I activate my facedown Trap, Depth Amulet! By discarding one card from my hand, I can negate your attack! And I can reactivate this card whenever I please for the next two of your turns!"

"Fine! I'll set two cards and end my turn!"

Yusei has Speed Warrior on his field now, and two facedowns. Kiryu has a Monster called Infernity Beast on the field, along with his Depth Amulet Trap. The dial on Crow's screen showing how many Speed Counters they have ticks up to 2.

"I summon Infernity Archfiend in Attack Position!"

It says on the duel screen that Infernity Archfiend has 1800 ATK and 1200 DEF. I turn to Crow. "You have any idea what type of cards an 'Infernity' deck runs?"

"You're the one full of all the facts, I was going to ask you the same question!"

I've read about a lot of styles and deck types, but I've never heard of anything called 'Infernity.' "I'm guessing this isn't the style Kiryu dueled in the last time you were all together?"

"No—I've never seen these cards he's using."

I look back at the duel screen to find that Yusei's LP has fallen to 3300, and he's without his Speed Warrior. Infernity Archfiend is still on the field, set to attack Yusei directly.

That's not only 1800 points in direct damage, but Yusei said that duel damage against Dark Signers was real. That's 1800 points of real pain, and a step closer to him losing the duel and, by extension, his life.

Crow fist pumps as the graphic on his screen shows one of Yusei's Trap cards, now flipped face up.

"I activate my facedown, Scrap-Iron Scarecrow!" Yusei's voice says. "This Trap negates the damage I would take from your attack, and after the damage resolves, I get to put it right back down on the field!"

"Same old cards, then? I'm disappointed in you, Yusei!" Kiryu sets a facedown—then it's Yusei's turn again.

"I summon Junk Synchron in Attack Position! Then, via his special effect, I can bring back a Level 2 or below Monster from my Grave!"

Speed Warrior appears back on the field with Junk Synchron. Beyond summoning a Synchro, what can Yusei do? With Depth Amulet, Kiryu can easily keep discarding cards to reactivate his effect and negate any attacks Yusei would try to wage.

"By tuning together Junk Synchron and Speed Warrior, I can Synchro Summon Junk Warrior!"

2300 ATK will certainly keep him safe against both Infernity Beast and Infernity Archfiend, but like I said, he can't attack. It would be useless.

Yusei triggers his second facedown. "Now, I'll activate Shard of Hope! When a Monster I control deals damage, I can draw a card! If that card is a Trap, I can activate it by destroying Shard of Hope!"

"He's going to attack," I voice. "But Kiryu's effect—"

"Yusei's trying to figure out what kind of game he's playing," Crow says. "Kiryu never used to be one to risk having an empty hand."

"I don't know anything about this person," I tell him, "but I find it hard to believe that there's any hope of him being even remotely close to who you used to know."

"I guess we'll find out," Crow remarks.

"Junk Warrior, attack Infernity Beast!"

"Don't you learn, Yusei? By discarding a card in my hand, I can reactivate the effect of Depth Amulet and negate your attack!"

What else could Yusei have done, I guess? He knows Kiryu better than me, obviously… I have to trust that he knows what he's doing.

Yusei sets no facedowns; Kiryu begins his next turn. Their SPC have ticked up to 4.

"By Releasing both my Infernity Beast and my Infernity Archfiend, I can summon Dark Tuner Nightmare Hand to the field!"

"What's the difference between a Dark Tuner and a regular Tuner?" I mutter. "Besides the name, I guess?"

"Dunno, but it can't be good. Anything with 'Dark' in front of it can't be good."

"Due to the effect of Dark Tuner Nightmare Hand, I can also Special Summon Infernity Dwarf directly from my hand!"

Now he has no cards in his hand. Which was what Yusei was trying to test, I guess. But who actually likes being handless? Does Kiryu even mean to be without cards in his hand, or are we all just overthinking his moves?

"Now, I tune together Dark Tuner Nightmare Hand and Infernity Dwarf in order to Dark Synchro Summon my One Hundred-Eyed Dragon!"

"One Hundred _what now_ ," Crow breathes.

I lurch forward and brace myself on Crow's duel runner; something feels like it's reaching up underneath the ground. It's nothing like when Aki used to duel, when it felt like vines were breaking up underneath my feet. This feels alive. Like the ground under us is breathing.

When the summon is over, resolved on the duel screen, Crow exclaims, "3000 ATK?! Nothing in Yusei's deck has that much power!"

Oh gods, this definitely isn't good. "I wish we could help him," I manage in a little voice.

"You and me both," Crow remarks.

"One Hundred-Eyed Dragon, destroy Junk Warrior!"

"I activate my Trap—"

"Not so fast, there!" Kiryu's voice crackles. "My One Hundred-Eyed Dragon can gain the abilities of all Monsters in my Grave if I currently have _no cards in my hand_!"

So… that's what Infernity cards must depend upon. It's a handless deck. The opposite of what Yusei would have been able to expect.

"Due to the ability of the Infernity Beast in my Graveyard, you can't activate any Spells or Traps until after the Damage Step! Rendering your little Scrap-Iron Scarecrow _obsolete_!"

Junk Warrior is gone now; the ticker displaying Yusei's Life Points shows him at 2600… watching it scroll down to the new number makes my stomach twist. I was in plenty of real-damage duels as a child, but I don't know how they compare to this. Can this power be held back? Amplified? How much of this can he take? How long before I start to lose my cool because I don't know if Yusei will win?

It's Yusei's turn now, though. His SPC are up to 5.

"I summon Rockstone Warrior in Defense Position!" He calls. "Then I'll set a card and end my turn!"

"No attacking today?" Kiryu's voice jeers. "That's all right—Depth Amulet's all out of power, so luckily for you, it's destroyed! But your DEF mode monster won't do much in the way of helping you, because the ability of Infernity Dwarf in my Graveyard enables me to inflict Piercing Damage!"

Oh no. That's… 1400 points in damage dealt to Yusei. That would leave him with, what, 1200 LP?

"Before I get ahead of myself, I'll activate the Speed Spell - Power Baton!" Kiryu exclaims. "By discarding a Monster card from my deck, I can increase One Hundred-Eyed Dragon's ATK by the ATK of the Monster I just discarded!"

Crow makes an audible noise of discomfort—whatever Monster Kiryu just discarded, it took One Hundred-Eyed Dragon's ATK up to _5300_.

"Of course, this effect will persist until the end of the Damage Step at the cost of my next draw! One Hundred-Eyed Dragon, destroy that pitiful pile of rocks!"

So, Kiryu's also kept his hand empty for the next two turns. That keeps all of those Graveyard effects open for him to use. Unless Yusei can get him to add cards to his hand, he's going to get held hostage by the myriad of Grave effects Kiryu gets to pick and choose from.

I fidget with my gloves, the hem of my jacket, anything I can reach, and try to prepare myself for the damage my friend's about to take; the step closer he's about to take to death. I got him to let me go with him, promising to help somehow, and what? I'm standing here watching him speed closer to something horrible?

"I activate Rockstone Warrior's special effect! I take no damage from a battle involving this card!"

"Fine! I can still activate the effect of the Infernity Destroyer in my Graveyard and deal you 800 points of damage!"

Yusei's at 1800 LP now. He's mitigating the damage, sure, but he's still getting closer to being in a really bad spot. Crow, next to me, is scanning the information on his duel screen as if he's trying to build a strategy to fight Kiryu with.

" _HEY_! CROW! C!"

I whirl around, and Crow looks up; Rally, Nerve, Taka, and Blitz come streaking up the ridge behind us. I wonder how long it took them to realize we were gone. Did Saiga stay behind to keep eyes on the children?

"What's going on? Where's Yusei?" Rally blurts.

"Down there," Crow says plainly, pointing down at the glowing track down below us.

"What?" Rally leans in toward Crow's runner to get a better look at the screen. "He's dueling!"

"He's _turbo dueling_ ," Blitz specifies. "Who?"

" _Kiryu Kyosuke_ ," Crow remarks.

"Whoa, okay," Nerve retorts, "'Let's go kill all the Securities' Kiryu? Kiryu who's supposed to be in the _Detention Center_?"

"That would be the one."

"He's a Dark Signer, one of the people that Yusei was talking about," I say.

"He's part of the guys that want to burn down Satellite?" Taka exclaims.

"How's Yusei doing?" Rally presses.

"We should hope he starts doing better," Crow tells them. "If he loses, I'm pretty sure there'll be no more Yusei."

An unsettling silence falls over the four of them. Together, we all hunch over Crow's duel runner to watch the duel continue.

Yusei has summoned two more monsters, Level Warrior and Hyper Synchron. He tunes them together to make Stardust Dragon—a big beautiful white dragon that I can see even from up on this ridge—which immediately lightens the mood of the people around me.

"When Hyper Synchron is used as Synchro Material," Yusei amends, "I can increase the ATK of the Monster he helped summon by 800!"

Stardust Dragon's ATK jumps up to a relieving 3300; 300 more points than Hundred-Eyed Dragon. With all of Kiryu's handless effects, though, will Yusei even be able to wage an attack?

"Stardust Dragon, attack Hundred-Eyed Dragon!"

"Due to the effect of the Infernity Guardian in my Graveyard, my Hundred-Eyed Dragon can't be destroyed this turn!"

"Fine by me! You still take damage!" Now Kiryu is at 3700. It's the first bit of damage Yusei has been able to deal this whole duel, and I don't think this is the end of his strategy for this turn. "Because I dealt you damage, the effect of Shard of Hope reactivates! I can draw a card, and if the card I draw is a Trap, I can activate it!"

"He's looking for one specific card," Crow muses.

"That's a lot of hope to pin on a deck of forty plus," I say. "That he'll pull one specific card."

"Knowing Yusei? It's safe to assume he's pinning his hopes on whatever gave him that mark. Whatever's watching him."

I wonder if that's a fruitless hope, until Yusei's voice crackles back through Crow's speakers like he got exactly what he wanted. And maybe he did. "I activate the Trap, Miracle Locus! With this card, I can increase Stardust Dragon's ATK by 1000 by making you draw a card!"

"All right," Crow breathes. "Now that handless combo is useless."

I breathe out the pressure in my chest, but why do I still feel like this is far from over? Stardust's damage calculation on Hundred-Eyed Dragon will only deal Kiryu 1300 points in damage; that'll put Kiryu with 2400 LP at the end of this turn. Unless Yusei isn't done.

"Stardust Dragon, destroy Hundred-Eyed Dragon!"

Nerve, Taka, Blitz, and Rally are starting to celebrate around me, almost too loud to catch Kiryu manage a few more words at the end of damage calculation: "When Hundred-Eyed Dragon is destroyed in battle, I can add a card from my deck to my hand!"

"He's getting rid of the handless combo," I say. "Why?"

Crow, next to me, looks as wary as I feel. "I don't know.

"I'm also going to activate Synchro Destructor!" Yusei calls. "If a Synchro Monster of yours was destroyed this turn, I can deal you damage equal to half of its ATK! Twice!"

Hundred-Eyed Dragon had 3000 ATK… that amount would end the duel in Yusei's favor. But Kiryu flips over a Trap.

"I activate Damage Translation! This card allows me to halve the damage I take this turn and summon two Ghost Tokens onto my side of the field!"

Tokens. Why does he want _tokens_. What will they summon?

"He didn't specify the card he drew from his deck when Hundred-Eyed Dragon was destroyed," I say.

"I know," Crow replies.

Kiryu's down to 900 LP now, and Yusei ends his turn.

"Hey guys?" Rally prods me. "What the heck is that?"

Out in the distance, distorted by the purple light of the fire, I see what looks like hundreds of silhouettes. People.

"Where did they come from?" Blitz asks warily.

"Wait, wait, Kiryu released his two tokens," Crow blurts. "What's—that?!"

This big… I don't know, _chrysalis_ looking thing has formed up in the sky. Looking at it reminds me of anatomy books I used to flip through and all of their overly-detailed drawings of human hearts. That's what it is, a giant glowing heart.

"It doesn't feel right," I breathe.

"Doesn't feel right?!" Blitz leans over the duel runner toward me. "What does that mean? What doesn't feel right?!"

"That _thing_! _It doesn't feel right_!"

Purple light begins to streak upward across the sky, like comets or meteors glittering upward from earth, into the heart thing. There's electricity in the air, and I press my hands over my ears like I can compress my burgeoning headache back between my ears. What is this? What's happening?

Crow loses the audio somehow, and starts smacking his duel screen as if trying to get it to work. I keep my eyes on the heart until it suddenly just… bursts. Tremors crest up underneath us, and suddenly there's this huge monster, glowing blue, reaching its hook-like fingers up into the air and grabbing as if it could tear down the sky.

I don't know what's happening; the audio is gone, and I can't make quick enough sense of the duel layout on Crow's runner besides the card that's just appeared on Kiryu's field.

" _Earthbound Immortal,_ " I read, "Ccapac Apu."

"This isn't good, crap, crap, crap," Crow breathes. "C, we need to get down there—"

"Forget the real battle damage," I interrupt, beelining for Hiraeth and pulling my helmet on. "That thing isn't a Monster _card_. That thing is a _Monster_."

"Wait! For! Us!" Someone, I don't know who in the group we left up on the hill, is shouting as I follow Crow down the slope toward the track. Ramping down all of these rocks makes my bones rattle.

Crow and I race around the track, looking for even the slightest glimpse of Yusei or Kiryu. The monster is so huge that it's hard to know where it's aiming when it lowers a huge knobby hand down toward the ground, presumably to launch an attack. My head's pounding.

 _Please don't kill him, please don't kill him, please don't kill him. Whoever is listening, whatever's out there, please, please, let him live_.

It takes me and Crow a while to reach the other side of the track, and by the time we get there and I have a front-facing view of the monster, it suddenly dissipates back into the air. The moment the wall of fire goes down, Crow ramps into the area that was encompassed by the flames, looking for Yusei. Kiryu is nowhere to be found.

I see his red duel runner first, not too far from us. It's on its side. Broken. Front wheel blown, duel disk snapped in half, and three quarters of the hood crunched up like a paper bag.

I'm assuming the worst, hoping for the best, and I only spot Yusei because of his red helmet: lying on his side, a few feet behind his duel runner, like he was tossed from it.

I abandon Hiraeth next to him and slide onto my knees to try and figure out if he's in any way okay. He… he looks like he's breathing. He's out cold, though, and his skin feels like ice. I turn him off of his side, onto his back, trying to be gentle in case he's worse than he looks.

"Oh, fuck, Crow!" I hear myself say.

Crow stops on the other side of me. "Don't—move him! Is he—"

He's hurt. _Badly_.

It takes me a second to make sense of the shrapnel, the blood—the shard has to be at least half the length of my forearm, not even accounting for how much of it has gone through him. And I don't know whether or not him being unconscious is a good thing or a bad thing.

"Do… we…" Crow looks like he wants to reach for him. His face has gone pale.

"If we try to take it out, he'll bleed out," I croak. "He needs a hospital."

"I… I know just the place. Get him on my duel runner—"

"Okay. Help me," I breathe. Crow dismounts to help me lift Yusei's body up off of the ground, avoiding the spot where the metal has pierced his side. "On his back. We can't risk moving the shard."

"Okay. Okay." When Yusei is safely on the back of Crow's runner, Crow rips off down the wasteland. I stay on his tail the whole way, and for the first time I'm not even remotely worried about keeping up or falling.

I follow him for a long ways, until the wasteland turns into buildings and the buildings suddenly turn into trees. Crow careens to a stop and vaults off of his duel runner, without even taking his helmet off, and sprints to bang on the door of a little house nestled among the grove of trees.

I wrench my helmet off and go to examine Yusei—the blood has gotten much worse on the way here. It's soaked dark spots all across his shirt.

I hear shouting. Multiple voices, actually, and light blooms around the door where Crow is. Two or three people come rushing out, and I watch, feeling helpless, as they heave Yusei up and inside the house, presumably— _hopefully_ —where they can help him.

Crow jogs back to leave his helmet with his duel runner. "Come on, C."

"Where are we?" I croak.

"Come on. Inside." He puts his hand on my shoulder. "I wish it were under better circumstances, but… welcome home."


	17. The Girl From The Woods

Sleep is the last thing on my mind—even if I could calm down enough to manage as much as a nap, I'm sure it wouldn't last long. Yusei's been in the room at the end of the hall for what's felt like years.

Not too long ago, Rally, Nerve, Blitz, and Taka caught up with us, even accompanied by Saiga, but they arrived here stark naked and toting Yusei's broken duel runner. I feel bad that I only remembered it when the four of them brought it to our attention, and that they obviously had to go through the wringer in order to get back here. Crow found them blankets, so at the very least, they've got those.

I'm sitting on a creaky wooden stairwell by the door, a couple steps up from Crow. There's a crumpled up tissue in my hand—when I came into the light, Crow told me that my nose was bleeding. I don't know when it started, or what caused it... I didn't use my powers. At least, I don't _remember_ using them. And the nosebleed stopped quicker than usual. It's definitely the last thing on my mind right now, behind my friend dying in the next room and the fact that I'm sitting in my childhood home.

This house feels like it breathes, especially when the wind sends settling sounds through the walls. I don't know what I was hoping for. None of this looks or feels familiar to me. I wanted at least one memory, I guess, to emerge, but… so far I've gotten nothing. I have to stay optimistic about this place until I've seen all of it. I have to stay optimistic about _Yusei_ until we're sure he's okay or he isn't.

When that door at the end of the hall finally opens, everyone in the room—including me—is on their feet.

The woman in the doorway is little and plump, her brown hair in braids and her face dark and gentle. She's accompanied by a man that I can only assume is a doctor, judging by the way he's dressed.

"Well?" Crow blurts.

"He's going to be okay," the woman says, in this voice like a lullaby. The whole room breathes a sigh of relief. I'm remembering Yusei's description of this place, and…

Martha. That woman must be Martha.

"After a few days' rest, he should make a full recovery," the doctor chimes. "He's very lucky that you brought him here right away. Things could have been much worse had he not been taken for help straightaway."

"That's such great news!" Rally, clutching Yusei's helmet, exclaims. They sound like they're going to say something else, but their words get jumbled up by a sneeze.

"Oh, wonderful." Martha puts her hands on her hips. "Why don't you all come into the kitchen, I'll make some soup. You can explain all of this to me."

Crow motions for me to follow him. I tag along beside him, followed by Rally, Tank, Blitz, and Taka shuffling after us.

The dining room is little and connected to the kitchen. All covered in wood, centered by a creaky wooden dining table surrounded by chairs. The kitchen is mostly polished wood and brick.

Martha lights a few lamps around the door and the window at the far side of the room. When she turns to us, probably about to say something, her eyes find me and no words come out of her. Now she's just gaping.

"I… _hi_ ," is the best I can manage. Am I _that_ recognizable? That Yusei, Crow, and Martha all see the resemblance between me and my brother right away?

"...well," Martha breathes. "Where did you come from?"

"I met Yusei in Neo Domino," I tell her softly. "He brought me here. He told me this was my home."

Martha stares at me for what feels like a long time. Nobody says anything, until suddenly Martha's all the way across the room with us and I find myself closed in her arms. The smell of her hair hits me like a punch in the stomach. _Lavender_.

Lavender, _I remember that_. For what feels like the first time, I can remember this. Being held by my mother.

I'm telling myself not to cry, but Martha says, "Look at you, you pretty thing. How you've grown." Whatever little bit of self restraint I had crumbles, and suddenly I'm bawling.

"Okay, honey. Why don't we all sit down so you can tell us what happened to you? Your brother's going to absolutely blow a gasket."

"Where is he now?" I hear Crow ask.

"He went across the sector to gather new parts for something yesterday. He isn't supposed to be back until morning."

"That's okay," I sniff. "I'll wait."

Martha laughs a little, her hands making circles against my back. I gather myself together enough to pull up a chair at the table, and when everyone has a seat, I explain everything I know.

Arcadia. Divine. The eight years I was there. Yusei recognizing me, and my escape… I leave out the superfluous details. I leave out my punishments for fear of gauging a bad reaction, or worse, freezing up. It leads into Crow chiming in and us talking about the Dark Signers. Telling Martha what happened, and why Yusei's essentially recovering from life-saving surgery right now. At the very end, Rally pipes up and explains to us why they're all in their underwear—that they had to trade their cards and clothes to get Yusei's duel runner through a particularly rough area of the sector on their way here.

"It sounds like all of you had quite the time out there. Yusei's lucky you all care about him so much."

"I'm glad he's going to be okay," I murmur. A few of the others nod in silent agreement.

Martha gets up to make everybody soup. The rest of the night following is purely uneventful. Mostly chatter between the others, Rally and Nerve trying to figure out if they can get their cards back, Crow chatting with Martha about what he's 'missed'.

At some point, Crow, Rally, Taka, Blitz, and Nerve all find the strength to sleep in rooms upstairs offered up by Martha, but I stay up thinking. I sit there at the rickety old kitchen table, my legs crossed, my jacket folded over the back of my chair.

"You always were a night owl," Martha says. As she passes me, she ruffles my hair a little.

"You know, you're the first person I've ever found familiar," I tell her. "Even just a _little_."

"I'm glad there's something you remember. It's very interesting that you came out of this without memories—someone went through a lot take you away from us."

"I guess." I glance up at her. "Are you staying up?"

"Yes, I sent Dr. Schmidtt to bed here as an apology for sending for him in the middle of the night. I'm going to stay up to look after Yusei." She's still clearing bowls from the table, moving them to rinse them out in the sink. "You should try to get some sleep as well."

"I can't."

"Why is that?"

"I… can't sleep when my mind isn't quiet," I manage.

"Hm. Worried?"

"I don't know. Maybe." I shake my head. "So much happened yesterday. And I know a lot is going to happen today, too. I know Yusei's going to be okay, but I really wish I could do more to help him. Part of me wishes I had been closer. Maybe I could have done something to prevent this."

"Some things, you just can't change." Martha turns the faucet off and blows out the light by the sink. "I personally believe that this was his final wake up call. He's been running into danger by himself for years, and today all of that risk caught up to him. Then there are his poor friends, who gave the very shirts off of their backs to try to save his duel runner… he has a myriad of people willing to help him that he just won't let in."

"He thinks it's his fight," I say. "Something picked him. Maybe it was for that impulsiveness, or the need to take charge, or what, but it picked him. I don't know if he thinks the other Signers aren't as up to the challenge, or if he figures he can get it done quicker and with less casualties by himself…"

"Usually, it's that last one." Martha pulls out a chair beside me. "When he and the other boys were younger, they did everything as a team. That Kiryu turned him, Jack, and Crow into a well-oiled machine. When their team disbanded, I think Yusei must have blamed himself. It was after that when he stopped living in my house and stopped being the carefree, open boy I raised."

So Kiryu was the catalyst. He's the reason Jack, Crow, and Yusei split.

"He wanted to help me, but he didn't want me to help him," I say. "Look where that got him…"

"Don't blame yourself. Hopefully he learns from this. If there really is disaster coming for us, he's not going to be able to take it all on by himself. And, when he wakes up, you can be sure I'll get that through that thick head of his. Once your brother hears about it… Frankly, I expect him to be livid."

"Are he and Yusei good friends?"

"I suppose you could say that," Martha replies. "When you vanished, he didn't feel comfortable turning to anyone besides Yusei. He followed him almost everywhere––your brother was the only one to stay with Yusei after Jack and Crow went their separate ways. He helped build Yusei's runners, he helped plan Yusei's trip to the city… after Yusei left to Neo Domino, your brother was back here, offering me whatever help I needed. He's a little bitter about it, though, so I can't imagine what sort of reaction he'll give when he returns tomorrow."

So Yusei's… my brother's Aki, then. The person he must consider his closest friend.

But maybe I can't say that anymore. Besides the fact that I left Arcadia… Seria told me not to come back. That she would come for me when I was truly safe from Divine. But Aki may never leave Divine's side, and if that's true… I might never see her again.

I try to shake away the thought.

"What's he like?" I ask. "My brother?"

"He keeps to himself most of the time," Martha admits. "He went through a few of the same changes I suppose Yusei did—but earlier. When he lost you, he was a different person almost overnight. He keeps all sorts of busy, building things on commission from others in the sector, but I can't say he ever really recovered." She frowns. "To be honest, he believes you to be dead."

Oh. "...well, I get why," I say. "I hope… me being here again won't hurt him."

"I don't think it'll hurt him. But I don't know what he's going to say or do. It's not every day your sister reappears out of thin air."

"Yeah," I scoff. "...hey, actually… he lives here, then?"

"Yes, I think Crow took his room for the night."

"You said he built things. Does he have any tools here?"

Martha squints at me warily. "Why?"

"I think… I can try to fix some of Yusei's duel runner."

"So you kept that fix-it instinct," Martha laughs. "All right. Sounds like I'm making some coffee."

Martha tells me that my brother has a tool chest in his room, and I sneak in amidst Crow's snoring to dig through what he has that I can use. Most of the tools look beaten up, and some of them look handmade, but they're surprisingly sturdy and heavy in my hands.

His room is—sort of bare. Books stacked neatly on a shelf by the window, locked steamer trunk in its own corner, clean floor, and Crow went right to sleep on top of the made bed… There's scrap metal all over his desk, though, like he left in the middle of a project.

By the door, there are two framed photos on the wall. One of them is in color, and I recognize Yusei and Crow in it. Younger. Yusei has no criminal mark, and Crow only has the one on his forehead. There are another three boys in the photo, one that I think must be Kiryu, judging by the silver hair, same haircut. The other is tall and lean, blonde hair spiked a little and falling against his neck. I don't recognize him, so I'll assume that's the _mythical_ Jack Atlas I've heard so much about.

Then it's my brother. And I know it's him, because, like Yusei said, he has my face. Or what of my face could be on somebody of the opposite sex. He looks very young in this photo, admittedly kind of handsome, but it's the sort of handsome that comes with a sallow, sad face. Like heroes in books who are prettiest in their brooding.

The other photo is in sepia—it's full of a bunch of children, lined up like a class photo. It's grainy, but I recognize Yusei's messy hair on a child that can't be more than six. He's kept the same haircut? I guess if it works for you, it works.

I can't recognize anyone else in the photo, but someone's drawn a circle in red ink around two kids on the lower left of the picture. From what it looks like, despite the unrecognizable faces, it's a little boy with his arm around the shoulders of a little girl.

Us. That must be us.

With my arms full of tools, I head back downstairs and dump everything on the kitchen table. I'll reorganize them when I get back.

I decide to start small—the circuits in the interface are malfunctioning enough that I can disengage his duel disk without needing fingerprint authorization, but I have to yank a little to get it out. There are still a couple of cards locked into the draw slot that I wrench out.

I bring the disk into the kitchen with me, and Martha blinks hard at me. "That poor duel disk."

"It was a really bad fall," I say. "The monster thing was huge, Martha. Ten thousand times bigger than the biggest building."

"I believe it. Here, let me get the rest of it."

She brings me Yusei's wrist dealer—it was still on him when he got taken in, and Martha explains that they had to practically cut Yusei out of his shirt and jacket to get to the shrapnel. I don't know how many cards are in his deck, but I just start counting them out of his wrist dealer to try and see how many there are. In case one or two got lost. I don't know. Some of them are still lodged in the duel disk itself, and I'll have to get them out when I take the disk apart. I end up with 60 cards, so I think it's safe to assume that all of them are present and accounted for.

After that, I crack open my backpack and dig for the notebook that I know has some blank pages in it. My pen's clipped to the spine, and thankfully it's still got some ink in it.

Martha watches me take apart the crumpled pieces of Yusei's duel disk, sketching up what I see as I go, and at some point she gets up to take the coffee pot off of the stove.

"You said 'fix-it instinct'," I say distantly as I try to organize the broken pieces by order of what's the most broken. "What did you mean by that?"

"Whoever your parents were, they left you a tinkering habit," Martha answers. "You and your brother always used to try to make things or take things apart as children. When you were finally able to read, the two of you would bring home these enormous books; Quantum Physics, Mechanical Engineering, ridiculously complicated things like that. When Yusei got involved with you two trying to be mechanics, that was that. I couldn't stop the three of you from taking everything you saw apart and trying to make something new with the pieces."

"...it's the only tether I ever had to the past, before Yusei. And my caretaker in the city used to hate it."

"I want you to know that if that man ever shows his face here again," Martha retorts, "I'm going to wring his neck."

For the first time, that thought of Divine makes me smile. Martha choking Divine out is a really, _really_ good image.

I haven't looked for the time at all tonight, but I sit there with Martha making tiny amounts of small talk and fiddling with the pieces of Yusei's duel disk. Drafting the schematic while I was taking it apart makes it much easier to put it back together once I have all of the pieces in order. This disk has all of the signs of a homemade duel disk, and some parts of it aren't in the places I'd expect them to be. I'd rather not mess it up—that would do more hurt than help—so the schematic helps me to be able to put it back exactly the way I found it. Just, you know… fixed.

Martha goes in and out of the room a lot, venturing to check on Yusei, who she says is dead asleep and halfway out of a fever. He's on a really powerful painkiller, she tells me; it's difficult to find some medicines in Satellite, apparently, and Dr. Schmidtt only had enough doses painkillers for the post-op and no anaesthetic, so Yusei was awake and feeling everything while they were getting the shrapnel out of him. Martha says that he's going to be really sore when he wakes up, but that it'll also probably take an act of God to keep him in bed for as long as he needs to heal.

I have a pretty clean schematic and a fixed duel disk by the time the sun starts peeking over the trees through the kitchen window. Martha has started making breakfast by the time I've tested it, making sure the disk disengages and the wrist dealer shuffles.

"You're very kind to have done that for him," Martha amends.

"I'm going to see what I can do for his duel runner, too," I tell her. "Even if it's little things, I want to help him. He's done so much for me already."

"Have some breakfast first," she states, sliding a plate of pancakes toward me. "Breakfast is usually a free-for-all, and it turns halfway into a warzone once the others wake up. I suggest you crack into those before somebody else does."

Have I ever had pancakes before? I don't know. They smell familiar, so I feel like I must have. I eat as much of them as I can manage before I resolve to take Yusei's duel disk and my brother's tools outside to see what I can do for Yusei's runner.

It's a little chilly outside, but I'm used to the A/C being lower in the Movement, so I resolve not to go back inside to get my jacket. Yusei's once pretty red duel runner sits, crumpled and sad, underneath a few trees, in between Hiraeth and Crow's duel runner.

I set all of my things down next to it and try to once-over the runner to see what, on the outside, is broken. It's probably a good idea for me to fix the outside and then test it to try and figure out what went wrong. I'm thinking back to Yusei explaining to me how it worked, in Daimon, though, and I feel like I should probably take a similar approach that I took with his duel disk. But I wonder if there's an easier way to figure out what it's all supposed to look like?

After deliberating over it for a few minutes, I roll Hiraeth a little closer to Yusei's duel runner, crack open my notebook, and get to work.

I think it's the slowest process I could've taken, but it's probably the most effective way to get Yusei's runner back toward the state it started in. Hiraeth, for the most part, is put together just like Yusei's runner, and piecing it apart to figure out what everything should look like seems like my best option. I'm getting a schematic of Hiraeth out of it, which is nice. If I ever have to fix Hiraeth, it'll come in handy in the future.

At some point, when everything is brighter and I can assume that the sun's all the way over the horizon, I hear a duel runner engine. I pop up from behind Yusei's duel runner to investigate; it sounds too far away to be Crow taking his duel runner.

A silver duel runner streaks in through the gate to Martha's house, a pile of something wound up in netting strapped to the back of it. I hunch down between the two duel runners on both sides of me, my face burning.

Was that him? Was that my brother?

What do I do? Go and talk to him straight up? Do I wait until someone tells him that I'm here? What do I do?

How do I introduce myself? I told Martha and the others about Cipher and C, but so far she hasn't used that name in addressing me. As a matter of fact, she hasn't addressed me by a name at all so far. Like she's waiting for me to pick between them. The one that Divine gave me? Or the one that Yusei told me that night in Daimon?

I guess… the real question is, who do I want to be now? I'd be lying if I said I could stand being called 'Cipher,' but that's who I've been for as long as I can remember. What if I don't live up to who I was before I was Cipher? What if he's disappointed by who Divine turned me into?

Out of nothing less than sheer terror, I stay there pinned between my duel runner and Yusei's, piecing what I can back together and repairing everything that looks like it needs to be fiddled with. There are some things, though, some wires and little parts, that look like they might need to be replaced. From what I see, it looks like parts of Yusei's runner just gave up and burst out of stress. The only thing that looked unusual was the front wheel; the rubber looked burnt away in a way that makes me think that something imploded.

" _Hey_."

I freeze. That's not a voice I recognize. I turn to set my eyes on whoever has come to see me.

I don't want to say he's twice my size, but he's tall. He's got an amount of muscle on him that says he's probably had more physical work to do than food to eat. He's hefting a dirty jacket over his shoulder and has a pair of dusty goggles with orange lenses hanging around his neck—a mechanic, a scavenger, he's something like that.

But… My face, he's wearing my face. Or as close to my face as one could put on a tall, almost gaunt boy in dirty mechanic goggles. It's my same shaggy, pin-straight blonde hair, downturned grey-blue eyes, rounded jaw, steep nose bridge… the features I spent years looking at in a mirror, trying to look for in Divine, all on this other boy.

"Hi," I whisper.

"I don't…" He sort of laughs. It's humorless. "I don't know what to say."

"Me neither," I admit. "I-It's not every day you meet a family member you didn't know you had."

He stares at me for a second. "What… are you doing?"

"I-I wanted to help Yusei somehow. I fixed his duel disk and broken wheel… so far. But I haven't checked the rest of it to see what malfunctioned."

"It's… better if you don't," he says. "He'll want something to keep his hands busy when he wakes up." I watch him circle the two duel runners––pulled close enough to each other that I can't really stand up in between them. "You… You took your duel runner apart?"

"I wasn't clear on how to put everything back together," I admit. "And I didn't want to mess up Yusei's duel runner, I know he's particular about it… So I disassembled what I could from mine to understand it a little better. It's… it's just easier that way. It helps me figure it out."

"Back up, back up." He rubs his fingers over his eyes. "You… _took apart_ … your own duel runner…?"

"I can put it back together," I say. "It's not a big deal…"

"Okay. Wow." When he comes back around in the front of both of them, where I am, he sinks down into a seated position, legs crossed. He even has the same freckle-looking birthmark I do, in the same place on his left cheek. "...this is real. Right?"

"It's real," I murmur. I put a shaky hand on his shoulder. "I'm real."

"You're real. Okay. I just… I need… a second." He leans closer and his head falls onto my shoulder. His chest starts vibrating with what I think are sobs. I put my arms around him to anchor him, and I think he's right—this doesn't feel real. I sit there holding him for a long time, not sure what to say, not sure what to do other than wait.

"You're _alive_. It's… _really_ you?" he sniffs at some point, his voice muffled in my shoulder. "What, you vanish for eight years and then just decide to show up again? Who the hell do you think you are?"

"If I'd had the option to stay, I would have!" I tell him. "I'm pretty sure I never really got the choice to do anything."

"I want to know everything," he says. "And I want the name and address of the person who took you away from me so I can personally go beat the shit out of them."

That makes me laugh. "Martha said something similar."

"We'll tag team, she can hold them down and I'll punch."

"I'll tell you everything I can," I laugh weakly. "My memory isn't… well, it's not perfect. Actually, it's barely even acceptable. The person who took me did something to it, and I can't remember a lot of things."

"It's okay," he says. "I'll help you fill in everything you're missing here."

"That's a lot," I warn him.

"It's a small price to pay for getting you back." He pulls halfway out of the embrace and puts a hand on my cheek. His fingers are warm, almost like he's radiating heat. "So, maybe it's a good idea to reintroduce myself—my name's Evan."

"...they called me Cipher, in the city. When I got taken, I was given that name. I called myself C instead because I didn't like 'Cipher'."

"Do you want me to call you that?"

"...no. I'd like my real name, if I'm allowed to have it."

"Of course you're allowed. It's _your_ name."

"Okay. Good. Because I want it."

"In that case," he says, "welcome home, Silvan."


	18. Gold Plated

I sit between Hiraeth and Yusei's duel runner for what feels like hours, talking to Evan.

I finally learn that Yusei's duel runner is named 'Yuusei Go'. We only get up so Evan can show me his duel runner—a pretty, sleek silver thing named 'Electric Vertigo'.

"It belonged to one of our parents," he tells me. "I don't know which. Just that it has our family name scratched under the hood. It was just a prototype when we were kids, barely functional for more than a couple of miles, and we used to try ride it around all the time… Actually, you and Yusei got pretty okay at riding it."

I _did_ ride before—Kawasaki was right about that, at least. It's not familiar… in the most classical sense. I guess. "So it isn't a prototype anymore?"

"No, I got around to finishing it this year, right after Yusei left. I put it off to help Yusei build his runner, but that's fine by me, it helped me fix Vertigo up quicker."

"Did… Did we find it? Or what?"

"Martha had it. Technically." Evan runs a hand through his hair. "She had a bunch of stuff for some of us, presumably that our parents left behind. A bunch of books and tools for Yusei, things like that. These." He holds up the goggles around his neck. "She kept the prototype in the basement, said she was going to wait to give it to us until we were 'old enough'."

"Wait, but when were we old enough?"

"We definitely weren't. You try to keep a couple of bored, curious kids away from locked doors, let me know how it goes."

"Do we know anything about them?" I ask. "Our parents?"

"Not as much as I wish we did," Evan answers. "Just guesses. Martha doesn't know much, either. I assume we got delivered to her with the stuff our folks left us, but… I don't know. I know that one of them must've been a mechanic, if we got left with a duel runner prototype. If we both have a knack for fixing stuff. I think it must be genetic, if it's one of the things you remember."

"Fair enough," I say. "Can I tell you something weird?"

"Go for it."

"When I was in the city, at the Fortune Cup with Yusei, I got called on by Rex Goodwin. The Bureau Director?"

My brother crosses his arms. "Oh, I'm familiar."

"He's the reason half of this mess exists; he sent Yusei here, technically he's the reason Yusei's hurt now. But he knows things about the Signers, and he knows things about us. He told me that I looked like our mother."

"...the Director of Security Maintenance _Bullshit_ ," he says, rubbing at the corners of his eyes, " _knew_ our _mother_?"

"He didn't specify anything. As a matter of fact, he was a real jerk about it. I'm fairly certain, now, that he wanted to talk to me at all to find out if I was going to get involved with this Signer stuff. He certainly knows a lot more than he speaks about, and after what happened to Yusei because of him, I hate the idea of going back to him for more information. He let on that he knew I was in Arcadia, that Divine had taken me there illegally from Satellite, and that he hadn't done anything about it despite that. Then he mentioned our mother…"

"I'm no fan of Goodwin, or the Bureau," Evan remarks. "Goodwin is the reason we're still separate from the city. And Security just likes to pretend to be bullies. It's exhausting to deal with, and more exhausting to have to deal with it without complaining. I don't know about you, but I'd rather keep living my life without a mark."

"I wonder what that means for our parents," I say. "If our mother was from the city?"

"Or Goodwin was from Satellite." Evan shrugs. He went the same direction Yusei did with that knowledge. "Who knows." Evan leans on Vertigo, chin in his hand. "Tell me more about you. What haven't you talked about yet?"

"Uhhhhhhhhhhh. I don't know."

"...can I see your stabilizer?"

"Sure." I unclip it from my arm and toss it to him. He turns it over in his hands.

"I wonder if I could make one," he muses. "Though I'm not sure I really need one. I've fared pretty well without one, as is."

"If there's Dyne anywhere around, I'm sure you could."

"Diluted Dyne, sure," Evan remarks. "The pure stuff is the hardest to find. I'm guessing this thing is pretty pure. And how do I know where I would wear it?"

"By how strong you are," I say. "If I had better stamina, I've been told I could wear mine on my sixth chakra. I'm guessing that might be where you are."

"But, how do I know for sure?" He pauses. "And what do you mean by 'better stamina'?"

"...Oh. I… I didn't…"

"Found something you didn't tell me."

"Having better stamina doesn't necessarily mean—"

"Context clues," he interrupts. "You used it in the sense of psychics, and you based that whole statement off of the fact that our powers should mirror each other. If that's the case, you should have the same 'stamina' level as me. You're not the only brainiac around, little sister."

"I-It's not important. I promise."

"Silvan." It takes me a second to process that the name is mine. "You have to tell me if something happened."

"No, I don't," I say. "Not if it's not important. I promise you don't have to worry about it. I'm just not as strong as other psychics are. It's okay."

He raises his eyebrows at me. "I'm trusting that you're telling me the truth. All right?"

"Promise. It's nothing to worry about."

I can't tell him that now. Not yet. I don't know if I could ever admit it out loud. Just thinking about it makes me nauseous, and I can't imagine what would happen if I admitted something like that to my own brother. For now, or as long as necessary, my punishments are my business. No one else's.

"We can… figure out the stabilizer thing later," I say. "I have books somewhere."

"How much did you bring with you?" He scoffs.

"I don't know, I didn't pack the bag. I told you, Seria just handed it to me and I went." I look up at him. "I'm glad we have the same face. Otherwise, I don't know where I'd be."

"Yeah," he remarks, "that might be the one perk to having a genetic copy."

"We never even got to try taking each other's places," I say.

"Oh gods. No one would ever believe that you were me."

"I'll chop my hair off, fill up my jacket with pillows, and stand on stilts, no one will be able to tell the difference."

He reaches to ruffle my hair. "You're stupid."

The casual, teasing affection is something I've never really experienced. Aki and I never quite teased each other; our friendship was more like a mutual lean on each other.

"Thank you," I say, "for accepting me so quickly. I've never had anything like this before."

"What were you expecting? That I'd turn you away as soon as I saw you? That _any_ of us would?" He shakes his head. "I've had some weird and shitty stuff happen to me in my life, Silvan, but nothing ever really topped when you disappeared. You probably can't remember it, but we were all we had. You and me. It took us a long time to accept that Mom and Dad, whoever they were, had died, and not given us up. And we were luckier than almost all of the other kids. When all you want is some piece of who you could've been, some piece of what you lost, having a sibling is a godsend."

"No," I murmur. "I know how that feels. I spent a few years thinking Divine was my father, but when I realized that we looked nothing alike, I couldn't think of anything else to think about besides if there were other people like me in the world. _Family_ , I mean. It's surreal to know the answer, now."

"It's surreal to have you here," he responds. "Actually, I'm not totally sure I'm not dreaming."

"Let me know if you need to be pinched," I say.

"Oh, yeah, yeah. Sure." Evan's rolling his eyes. "Hey, actually, that reminds me. I want to give you something. Come on."

I follow him in, toward the house, and as soon as we pass through the front door, Martha is there with her hands on her hips. "Evan, you would let your sister traipse around covered in grease?"

"She was fiddling with Yusei's runner, she's fine," Evan says nonchalantly.

"Don't listen to him, he has no concept of cleanliness," Martha retorts, looking at me. "You're all dirty, I'll find you something to change into, and you can both wash up for lunch."

"Okay, fine," Evan exhales, already halfway up the stairs.

"Young man, I am your mother," Martha warns. I'm trying to cough to hide laughter as I follow my brother upstairs.

I tail Evan upstairs, into his bedroom. He's rifling through something in his desk, and I stand in the doorway until he finds it—a key, it looks like, with prongs all the way up to its base. He takes the photograph I remember from early this morning, the one with the two of us circled in red ink, off of the wall.

Behind it, carved into the wall, is this little metal box with a keyhole that looks about as intricate as the key he was digging around for.

"I built this in a long time ago," he says, jiggling the key into the padlock. "I didn't want to look at the things you left behind. The ones that were important to you, at least. But I also didn't want to get rid of them… so I put them here. Martha didn't touch it, even when I moved out for a couple years to bunk with Yusei, which was a relief."

He takes a couple of books and a leather pouch out of the box and hands them to me. There's a composition book with a ripped up cover and a little pocket book, and I snap open the leather pouch to find that it's full of cards.

"It's not much—"

"No, shut up," I say, flicking through the composition book. There are pages and pages of cursive writing out letters and words and names over and over again. Near the back, the writing turns into all kinds of sketches and doodles. This is _my_ handwriting—just a little wobblier than it is now. "It's _more_ than enough."

"I'm glad I could give them back to you, then."

The pocket book is yellowing in places, pages curling up and inward, but it's covered in detailed schematic drawings; they're too detailed for me, even now, and sketched out in thin lines like threads in a spider web.

"That's our father's," Evan tells me. "It says his name in the back. You always kept it to try and look for materials to recreate all of the things he'd drafted."

I flip to the back page where that same thin handwriting has stenciled " _Sören L_." on the inside cover.

"Our father's name is— _was_ Sören," I observe.

"His name is in most of our books," Evan replies. "I like to think he was the mechanic. Why else would he have all those schematics?"

"Do you know anything about Mom?" I say.

"There's a badly burned field journal somewhere in a box, in the basement," he answers. "I don't know if it ever had a name on it, but I think it could have been hers. It doesn't match all of the mechanical stuff Dad seemed to own—the surviving drawings in it are all of brains."

"Like… _human_ brains? Maybe she was a doctor?"

"I don't know." Evan's nose crinkles. "Maybe Goodwin might."

"Oh, yeah," I scoff. "If I _ever_ see him again."

"If he becomes a decent person for two seconds."

"Hey, you two." Martha pokes her head into the doorway. "What did I tell you? Get washed up for lunch!" She tosses a bundle of jean fabric toward me. "Here. I don't have much that isn't for little ones, but at the very least you can change out of your dirty clothes. You can get those ones as dirty as you'd like."

"Thank you, Martha."

She makes Evan go wash his face before eating, and I stay in Evan's room to change out of my oil-spattered clothes and into the clothes Martha brought: a pair of overalls that are roomy in the legs. I take the opportunity to put on the change of shoes and shirt that Seria put in my backpack, too; a striped shirt and brown boots that lace.

I clip my stabilizer on over my sleeve before I head back downstairs. I leave my books on the floor, next to my backpack, but I slip the pouch with my cards in it into my pocket.

When I get downstairs, Evan has his legs up on a chair next to him to keep anyone from sitting in it. There are three little boys and two little girls at the table, all probably no older than ten.

"Ev- _an_!" One of the boys whines. He has his arms thrown around one of Evan's legs. "Lemme sit there!"

"Silvan is sitting there, Takuya," Evan groans, sounding tired.

"He can sit there if he wants," I say. "I'll pull up a chair on the other side."

The boy, Takuya, plops down in the chair next to my brother and sticks his tongue out. He looks to be the littlest of all of the children, with dark eyes and teal hair long enough to pull into a tail.

Martha's putting plates of sandwiches on the table. "So you've decided on your name, hm?"

"Yes," I tell her. "But it feels strange. It doesn't feel like it's mine."

"You're whoever you choose to be," Martha says on her way back toward the sink, "even if you're different than you were when you left us."

"Evan," one of the little girls asks, "how long have you had a sister?"

"My whole life, she's just been gone for a long time." Evan gestures around us. "Silvan, this is everyone. Everyone, this is Silvan." He points around the table, naming the children as he goes. "Takuya—" who grins at me, "—Jun—" a boy with shaggy dark hair and freckles, "—Micchan—" a boy with brown hair and plump cheeks, "—Miyu—" the girl who spoke the first time, with dark hair to her chin, "—and Nana." Nana, who has brown hair in a ponytail and fragile-looking wire-rimmed glasses, waves at me, too.

"Nice to meet you all," I say.

"Where did you go?" Jun asks, leaning forward over the table. He and the others are all on their knees, otherwise they probably wouldn't be able to see over the side of the table.

"I—I went on a trip. To the city," I stutter.

"You've been to the _city_!" Nana marvels. "What is it like?"

"It's… really big," I say. "Big and busy. There are lights everywhere, and sometimes it's hard to find your way around, there are so many streets." I pin my eyes on my hands, folded in my lap, so I won't have to look at all of the eager faces staring at me. "Yusei could probably tell you much more about it, when he wakes up."

Takuya stretches up taller, anchoring himself with his hands pressed to the top of the table. "Nuh uh, probably! Evan said he was gonna beat Yusei up when he wakes up!"

"I did _not_!" Evan retorts. "I said I was going to give him a piece of my mind, not _beat him up_!"

"What difference is there?"

Martha swats Evan as she passes him. "There will be no 'beating anyone up', or you're sleeping outside with your precious duel runner."

"I said I wasn't going to!"

"Why are we threatening violence?" I ask.

"I'm not, why are we even talking about this?" Evan makes grabby hands toward one of the plates of sandwiches. "Somebody _please_ pass me that plate."

"You should do the magic!" Miyu shouts. "Show Silvan the magic!"

"It's not _magic_ ," Evan responds, "I _told_ you."

"Do it, do it!"

Suddenly all five of the kids are chanting, " _MAGIC! MAGIC! MAGIC!_ " and Evan has his head in his hands.

" _Excuse me_!" Martha shouts. "Behave yourself! All of you! If any of you wake Yusei, you're going to bed without dinner!"

Takuya, Jun, Micchan, Miyu, and Nana all sink silently into their chairs. I unclip my stabilizer from my arm, set it on top of the table, and say, "Here, Evan. Catch." One of the plates lifts off of the table and drifts toward him, earning a long " _WHOAAAAA_ " from the other kids at the table.

Evan catches the plate, grabs a sandwich off of the top, and says, "Back at you." He Wastes the plate back toward me, and I catch it before it can clatter back down to the table. The kids start clapping.

"That was so cool!"

"Evan, your sister does magic, too?!"

"Me next, me next!"

"Can you take whole people and float them places?"

"Do the sandwiches taste any different now?!"

"That's enough, that's enough," Martha retorts, shoving plates closer to the kids. "Eat your lunches, already."

Part of me feels badly for making Martha deal with these loud and curious kids getting progressively more loud and curious, but I see Evan looking at me across the table and trying to hide a smile, and suddenly I feel a lot less bad.

After lunch, when she's chased the children off to go finish their chores, I ask Martha how she thinks Yusei is doing. She mentioned that he hasn't woken up yet.

"I can't quite tell," she admits. "He's barely even tossing. I sent Dr. Schmidtt home earlier this morning; he told me to send for him when Yusei wakes, but I can't say I know when that will be. You don't exactly recover from that kind of life-threatening injury overnight."

"You told me he just missed getting kebabed through an intestine, right?" Evan asks.

"I said it could have been worse than it was. He needed several internal stitches to stop the bleeding."

"At least he isn't dead," I say softly.

"I don't see how this is better," Evan remarks. "From what Crow told me… He's… he's going to come back for him."

"Who?" I ask.

Evan sounds incredibly strained when he says, " _Kiryu_."

Martha heaves a very long sigh and stands to go attend to the plates in the sink. "You should let your sister in on that one. If you haven't already."

"Let me in on what?" I turn my head toward her. "And where is Crow, anyways?"

"He went back to his place this morning to check on his kids," Evan manages. "Come on… Martha's right, I should show you something. Have you put your duel runner back together?"

"N-No, I—"

"That's okay. You go put it back together, I'm going to get something from upstairs. I'll meet you outside."

He strides wordlessly out of the kitchen. This is almost more somber and silent than he was when I was telling him my story, outside. About Divine and Arcadia and all that's happened to me.

"What's up with him, Martha?" I ask.

"I'll let him tell you," Martha replies. "Like I said this morning, Evan is a very quiet boy. He's been through quite a bit in your absence, and I'm sure he's glad to finally have somebody other than Yusei to confide it all in."

The conversation is obviously over, so I scramble outside to try to put Hiraeth back together and see what's killing my brother's mood. With my schematic beside me, it's easier than I thought to put all the pieces back where they belong. By the time Evan comes back outside to me, I'm trying to fit the panel on the inner section of the duel runner back on.

He's wearing a beaten brown leather jacket and shoulder pads that crisscross down underneath his arms. He's hefting another brown jacket over his shoulder, one that reminds me a little of Yusei's; there are shoulder pads sewn into it, yellow and beaten like they've seen a few falls.

"Here, this used to be mine," he says, holding it out to me. "Sometimes it's hard to dodge the crap in the streets, and falling is inevitable, unless you're Yusei and you live on your duel runner."

"Thanks," I say, accepting it from him. The leather is soft and worn, loose around my arms and waist, and the smell on it reminds me of Yusei's coat: sweat and a hint of motor oil. "Where are we going?"

"I'll tell you when we get there."

I roll Hiraeth along behind him, until we reach his duel runner where it's parked near the other end of the house. The first thing that I notice about it is that the place for a wrist dealer to disengage a duel disk is empty.

"You don't have a duel disk?" I ask.

"No," he says. "I took it out. I haven't dueled since you left."

That effectively shuts me up. Suddenly I remember Yusei mentioning something like that to me.

"Besides," he continues, "I'm a far better mechanic than I am a duelist. I'll leave the dueling to Yusei and Crow."

I expect to be wobbly when I hop back onto Hiraeth, and of course I am, but not as much as I expected myself to be. Evan's a smooth rider, a lot like Yusei, but he doesn't rip up asphalt like Yusei does. It's easy for me to keep up and stay upright at the pace we're going at. My only issue is trying not to take my eyes off of the road to look at everything passing us by.

We ride for a long time, avoiding all sorts of pedestrians and rubble and piles of garbage. Children in the streets shout and wave at us when they pass by, probably because they must know Evan, and… and they're laughing?

This place has been destroyed, and no one has bothered to come clean it up and make it more livable for the people consigned to living here with nothing but their own names. But the children laughing in the streets makes something warm bloom in my chest, that they're happy despite their adversities.

I'm beginning to understand why Yusei seemed so bitter when he talked about this place. The people in the city would rather assume these children are criminals than give them a place to live that isn't only halfway standing. The same way they assume he's a criminal for the mark Jack Atlas gave him. The same way they assume Aki is a monster for being clueless about the dangers of her own abilities.

And Goodwin... he's willing to let everybody here die.

I follow after Evan until the people in the street start to thin out. The ground slopes upward, and the buildings become more sparse, too, until we reach what can best be described as a cliffside where a lone, roofless building stands. It looks like it could have been an office building in another lifetime, if it had walls that aren't cracked concrete and windows that haven't been blown out.

I wrench my helmet up off of my head once we've stopped and shake the heat out of my hair. "Where are we?"

"A graveyard," he says thinly.

There's no wind blowing here. The air is completely, utterly silent. A graveyard, all right.

My brother starts very slowly toward the building, and I follow him inside, where enough of the walls have fallen down that there's light on the stairwell and the rubble on the floor.

We're halfway up the stairs when he says, "I've died twice in my life, already, I think. The first time was in Martha's front yard; I was ten and tacking 'missing' posters to trees. The second time was right here."

"What happened?" I murmur.

"How much has Yusei told you?" He asks. "About Satellite? About us?"

"Us," I parrot. "I'm not sure I know who you mean."

" _Us_ ," he repeats. "Me and Yusei and Crow and Jack and… and Kiryu."

"Oh, " I say, finding familiarity. "The Duel Gang. Crow… Crow told me about that when Yusei was dueling Kiryu. Or, as much as he could explain without me knowing a ton about it."

"What did he tell you?"

"He said you all used to be friends with Kiryu. That he was obsessed with finding the perfect challenge, and eventually he took on Security… Crow said they took him to the Detention Center for killing somebody."

"I was never… _in_ the Duel Gang, for obvious reasons," Evan says. "But I helped them map Satellite, plan all of their raids, Yusei and I fixed their duel disks… I even made their deathmatch ropes, if you know what those are." He glances back at me as we reach the top of the stairs. "They're wired cuffs that reprogram duel disks on contact and force people into duels."

"So you weren't part of the official team," I say. "You were like… like the Tréville, I guess."

"I don't understand that reference."

"It's… oh, forget it. I do a lot of reading. Or I did. Never mind. You were the brains of the operation. Keep going."

"...we used to meet up here."

I follow Evan out onto the highest floor in the building. The floor's half-missing, and the roof is gone on the side of the building facing the cliff. I can see all the way out to the sea from here.

"I can't believe that's still here," Evan says fondly, albeit sadly, looking toward what looks like the broken pieces of a wooden table tossed carelessly into the far corner of the room.

"Tell me what's so important about this place," I say softly. Then, in recalling what Martha said, and all of the hesitation in his voice a few seconds ago, I add, "Tell me what's so important about _Kiryu_."

"Either you've already caught onto me as a person," he says, "or I'm more transparent than I want to be."

"I like to think of myself as very observant," I tell him. "Come on. You can trust me."

"I know." He shakes his head. Doesn't say anything for a second. "...Jack and Crow were always my friends. My brothers. It's been difficult to imagine my life without them in it, and I'm still bitter that Crow skipped out so quickly this morning. I haven't seen him in years, and I barely even got a 'hello' from him. Meanwhile, if I ever see Jack again, I'm going to hit him so hard in the mouth, he'll swallow his own jaw."

"... _wow_ ," I say.

"Jack caused a lot of trouble for me and for people I care a lot about, mainly Yusei. Yusei was there for me the most after you vanished, and that's never really changed. He's been there every step of the way for me, and seeing the effects of what Jack did to him was really tough. Yusei puts on this… I don't know, _tough guy_ facade for everyone else because he feels like he has to, but I think he's probably the most broken up person I know. Even if, someday, some act of God makes Jack come crawling back here, begging for forgiveness, I don't know if I'll ever be capable of forgiving him for all he's done."

"I understand," I say. "Nobody expects you to."

"Yusei does," Evan scoffs. "Yusei has all sorts of hatred for Jack, too, but I know if Jack came back and apologized, whether or not he meant it, Yusei would forgive him in a second. He misses the past too much to turn it away if it comes back."

" _No_ ," I say, trying not to let my voice crack. "You're not obligated to forgive anybody for anything. Even if Yusei does, even if Jack comes back on his _knees_ begging you to forgive him, you don't owe him anything. No one who hurts you, big or small, deserves your forgiveness as an obligation for their apology."

He almost smiles. "At least I know for sure we're related now. It sounds like you and I both know what it's like to get hurt."

"I… I guess."

He shoves his hands in his pockets. "Anyways, Kiryu… he didn't show up until later on. But boy, did he show up in a _big_ way. It was only after he left that the rest of us stopped talking. That was when it was just me and Yusei."

"What happened? What did he do?"

"He didn't… he didn't _do_ anything." His voice gets very, very soft, and he says, "but he was everything. To… to all of us. I never really trusted Crow or Jack with really tough, emotional stuff, not like I trusted Yusei. I don't know why. I guess… I guess they never really seemed to care, or ask to know, maybe they were too young and Yusei was just better at emotional stuff… but I could tell Kiryu. I could tell him everything. I told him and he listened and for the first time ever I didn't need to keep talking about it. I was—I was free of everything I felt, and that made me feel so powerful. He… I…"

"You loved him," I whisper.

"I… I don't know what to call it." He shuffles to the other side of the room and kicks at the shards of table. "I just know that he was different, for me. Different than he was with the others. He started saying crazy shit about Security, and… that's when I lost him. The rest of us went after him to try to stop him, but he wouldn't listen. Not even to me, after everything we'd gone through, everything we were. Yusei ended up pinning him down, and I watched Security drag him off into a squad car. Right here. And I died all over again."

"I'm sorry." I take a step toward him. "I'm sorry, Evan."

"If you were wondering why I'm a little angry with Yusei, why the kids think I was going to get _physically_ angry when he wakes up," Evan continues, "it's because I asked to go with him to the city. I wanted to look for Kiryu. I… I had this hope that he was there, that he was still alive. I wanted to give Jack a piece of my own mind, too. I wanted closure as bad as Yusei did, and yet, he insisted he had to do it alone. And, what do I find out, the second my only friend shows up sliced open on an operating table? That the only person who's ever meant something more to me than my own _fucked_ life was the one who did it to him."

"I'm sorry," I say again. I don't know what else to say. "Evan, I'm sorry. I'm sorry you've been through all of this. I'm sorry I wasn't with you."

"I'm sorry, too," he says. "But I don't blame you. I don't blame you for one second, and I mean it when I say that I'm going to beat the shit out of _Divine_ if I ever meet him. Losing parents we never knew was one thing. That, I could deal with. I could rationalize it. But I dealt with all kinds of guilt when you were gone for years and years, thinking that—that I _should_ have been with you. That I should have _done_ something."

"There's nothing you could have done," I tell him. "I wish I could remember what happened. But I'm telling you, there's nothing anyone can do about Divine. He's _evil_. He pretends that all he wants is good for the people he ensnares, but all he does is make them just like him."

"You don't seem very monstrous to me."

"That's because…" I swallow. Do I… can… can I…

No. _No_ , this isn't a secret I can keep. Not after Evan just ripped out his worst for me. Fuck it. Even if I only get it halfway out, even if I have to cry and scream my way out of it. This is my brother, the only family I have, and I came here to Satellite for him. If he's laying it all on the table, then I have to do the same.

I need to admit it to someone. Just to see how it feels. What it sounds like. I need it all to stop being encrypted—data that I shove into the back of my mind to be decoded later, just so I don't have to think about it. I'm not Cipher anymore. I won't be.

"Evan, I think you told me the thing that breaks you up the most inside," I hear myself say. "Now, there's something I really, _really_ need to tell _you_."


	19. Deep End

While Martha's making breakfast, I'm laying all of the cards Evan gave me out on the table. Evan's sitting next to me, close enough that my shoulder touches his arm.

"That one, you always said was your favorite," he says, pointing to the monster cards spread out in front of me. "Machina Peacekeeper. If you Summon it, you can add a Machina monster to your hand that adds another Machina monster to your hand. One that's stronger than both of them combined."

"Nice," I say. I hold up a Spell card and tilt it to watch the picture shimmer. "'Machina Armored Unit'?"

"Continuous Spell. If a Machine-type monster on your field gets destroyed, you can Special Summon another Machine-type monster."

"Where did we find these, anyways?" I ask.

"The junkyards," he says. "There are heaps all over Satellite full of all kinds of trash the city tosses out here. Sometimes cards turn up. Who better to find them than kids who can slip into places we don't belong?"

"Fair," I say. "I'll have to try practicing with these sometime. I have a Psychic deck in my wrist dealer right now, but I haven't used it in a while. Divine took them all away from me a long time ago, I only have them because Kawasaki gave them to me before I left."

"Well, these ones are yours. Nobody's going to take them away from you this time."

"Okay, good. I'm glad."

"I'm happy to see the two of you already so joined at the hip," Martha says from the stove. It's early enough that none of the other kids have come down for breakfast yet, so it's just the three of us in here; me, Evan, and Martha.

"Obligatory sibling bonding," Evan tells her, slinging an arm around my shoulder. He feels warm, like his skin is literally expelling heat. "We had a good moment."

We stayed out for hours yesterday, and I told him. Despite how unfamiliar and wrong it felt to hear myself say it out loud, despite what memories talking about it dragged up. I showed him the scars on me—he knows about what Divine did to me.

Some of the blood bruises are still there, on my upper arms and my calves, and when he saw them, he went through a series of different responses to them. A lot of silence. Shouting. He broke most of the already-broken table in the old hideout and started throwing it over the cliff out of the crumbling side of the building. I think he's a very _physically_ angry person—he didn't settle down until he broke something.

It was the first time I've ever admitted that part of what happened in Arcadia to anyone. And there was a lot of crying. From both of us.

I told him what I saw of Kiryu, when he and Yusei were in that Line dueling. I told him that this Kiryu I saw was angry and cold, and that the only reason he didn't kill Yusei was because Yusei became unable to continue the duel.

Crow, apparently, told Evan in passing that they saw Kiryu, and that he wasn't the Kiryu they used to know. Crow told my brother only that Kiryu wanted Yusei dead, and that he would probably be back to finish the job. That definitely added to how bitter my brother is about the current situation.

So far I've learned that my brother hates having things kept from him. Yesterday, I swore to myself that I would never keep a secret from him because of it.

"Silvan? Are you awake?" Martha's waving a hand in front of my face.

"Only ironically," I tell her. Evan laughs at that. I only got a little sleep last night—there was a room for me, but I spent more time lying awake and staring at the ceiling than trying to drift off. "I'm always tired, it's nothing new."

She squints at me a little and puts a cup of coffee down in front of me. "Pancakes should be done in a few minutes. Evan, if the others aren't down by then, would you go wake them up?"

"Will do. Is there anything you want to do today, Silvan? Want me to show you around, or anything?"

"I'm not sure. Is there anything _you_ want to show me?"

"Not that I can think of. Not that I haven't already shown you."

"Okay. I'll… I'll think of something, I guess."

"We can just hang around. I don't think any of us are really going anywhere anytime soon. Unless you're Yusei, probably."

"If I have to strap that boy to his bed before he's even woken to keep him from going anywhere, I will," Martha remarks.

"Maybe… Maybe I can figure out more of what's going on with him and with Kiryu today," I say.

"Doubt it," Evan says, crossing his arms. "No libraries, here. Remember? The only reason any of us can read is Martha."

"Ahh, right." I fiddle with the handle of the coffee mug. "There aren't a lot of resources here, I forgot. This really kind of sucks."

"Yeah, you're catching on." Evan tips his chair back a little and braces himself by putting his hand on top of my head. "We have little to no intellectual property around."

I swat at his elbow, but it doesn't make him move. "...I wish there was something we could do. Some way we could figure out what was going on."

"You mentioned you knew some stuff already, though."

"Well, yeah, but… It's been a really long time since I studied any mythology. I stopped picking it up to read about a while back, I've read a lot more manuals and fiction stuff lately. You know, sensible things. When you're more or less trapped, religion of any kind certainly isn't the first thing on your mind. I mean, for me, at least."

"I'm sure anything will help," Martha amends. She turns toward us, a spatula in her hand, and gives Evan a flat look. "If you break that chair, you're building a new one."

"I won't! Jeesh!" He stops tilting the chair immediately—like he knows he will break it if he keeps leaning backwards on only two of its legs. I keep sorting my cards by Monsters, Spells, and Traps, and my brother changes the subject. "How was Yusei looking last night?"

"He's started running a fever," Martha remarks. "I'm glad he's sleeping, though."

"You're not worried that he's been out for… what, two days, now?" I ask.

"Sleep will put him back together quicker. And it keeps me from having to go in and check if he's tried to climb out the window yet."

"Just chain his duel runner to a tree," Evan suggests. "Unfortunately, Silvan insisted on trying to fix most of it, so it's nearly operational. I think it'd take him half an hour, at the most, to get it running again."

"Hey, I wanted to do something nice for him," I protest. "He's probably going to have enough on his shoulders when he wakes up."

"Yes, he'll be sore and cranky," Martha says.

"And probably playing martyr," Evan adds. "You sure I'm not allowed to punch him, like… a little bit?"

"You can't solve _every_ problem with violence," I retort.

"I mean, I can try," he says.

"Not in my house," Martha tells him. "Besides, if he wakes up playing hero, _I'm_ going to be the one to knock some sense into him."

I've finished counting out all of my cards, now; there are forty eight of them. I look over them, skimming their descriptions, details, and effects as I go. Martha puts a plate of pancakes on the table for both of us.

"...has Crow come by again?" I ask.

"No. I don't know where he is." Martha sort of rolls her eyes as she crosses back to the stove. "He calls himself the most 'free-spirited' of all of my kids, but he acts like the most distanced of them."

"He's been incommunicado for years," Evan says thinly. He stabs a pancake with a fork. "It's nothing new. I'm just surprised that he bothered to bring Yusei here before he skipped out again."

"He didn't seem so distant when I was with him," I say. "He was pretty aware of being away. Actually, he apologized for it and _begged_ Yusei to let him tag along to the B.A.D. before Yusei fought Kiryu. I mean, I did too. Beg, I mean, to go with him, but… I don't know, Crow just seemed like he cared."

"Maybe he does," Martha remarks. "But, no matter what he feels, he seems to suddenly have his own plans. I can't stop him from growing up."

"Nobody, it seems, can stop him from figuring out what his priorities are," Evan scoffs. "It's fine, I'm not bitter."

"You're the most bitter person I know," I retort. "And I've known you for two days."

"That's called sarcasm."

"Silvan, eat your breakfast, you're skinny as a rail," Martha retorts. "Evan, be nice to your sister."

So Evan and I eat in near silence.

Crow may not have come back, but the group of guys that were with Saiga before have. Martha said that, yesterday, when Evan and I were out, Rally, Tank, Nerve, and Blitz stopped by to check to see if Yusei was awake. They went back to their place for clothes and things the morning after the duel, and I'm guessing they're there now. Martha is expecting them to come again today to check on Yusei. Saiga, I've been told, went to see if he could find where Crow went off to. Martha's also expecting him to come back to check on Yusei.

Yusei has so many friends, and it makes me think of what Evan said yesterday, about how he said Yusei would probably forgive Jack Atlas in an instant if he offered up an apology. It makes me question what I thought I knew about Yusei before; he struck me as so confident, albeit a little distanced from some things, and almost completely unafraid of any sort of consequence. The Yusei that Evan is making me picture seems so much more fragile.

But, then… who says he isn't both?

After breakfast, Martha pours me a little more coffee and Evan goes upstairs to wake the children.

"I'm kind of out of ideas on what to do," I tell her. "When he wakes up, the only thing he's going to be focused on is this Dark Signer stuff."

"You're just as impatient as your brother," Martha remarks as she sets more plates on the table. "Yusei is going to have to learn to heal before he does anything else. If that means waiting a long time, so be it. He can't fight Dark _anythings_ if he can barely walk. And you and Evan will be doing whatever else you can."

"Okay," I murmur.

When I hear Evan coming back downstairs, I start to file my cards back into their pouch so they don't get spread all across the table. He's followed by Takuya, Miyu, and Micchan.

"Where are Jun and Nana?" Martha asks.

"Nana's in the bathroom," Evan answers. "I had to stand in Jun's doorway to make sure he was actually going to get out of bed. It might take him a second to find the stairs."

"Morning, everybody," I say as the children start to slide into chairs at the table.

I get mostly yawns and a couple 'mornings' back. I finish my second cup of coffee and go to wash it out in the sink. By that time, Nana is at the table, and we're just waiting on Jun.

"Hey, Ev," Nana chirps, rubbing her glasses on her shirt, "my glasses are starting to fall apart again."

"...all right. I'll have to make you some new ones," he says. "I just went to the junkyards the other day, so I'll check and see if I brought back something I can use."

"Thank you!"

Evan nods toward me. "Want to come help me look for stuff? You can bring your coffee."

"Sold," I say, standing. Together, we trudge out of the kitchen and upstairs to Evan's room, where he starts digging in the steamer trunk in one corner of the room. I recognize the metal netting he throws off of the top of it; it was what he was carrying on the back of his runner when I saw him drive up.

"You made Nana's glasses?" I ask.

"I make a lot of stuff," he says absentmindedly. "Kids are free, adults have to pay unless I know them."

"That's really nice of you."

"Well, somebody has to be the Good Samaritan on this criminal-infested shit rock. I'm just glad there's enough garbage for me to take my pick from." He glances back at me. "You'd have a field day at the heaps, there's cool stuff all over that regular people pass over because they don't see the worth in it."

"I'm sure it beats the alarm clocks," I tell him.

"Definitely." He pauses, then sinks onto his knees next to the trunk to start digging through it. "Hey, there's actually something I wanted to talk to you about."

"Okay," I say, noting the serious change in his voice.

"I don't know how long we're going to have to wait for Yusei to wake up," he says, "but I think we should both be clear on what we're going to say to him when he does."

"Oh." I pick at the cracking paint on my mug. "Yeah. What are you expecting to have to say?"

"Well, I think Martha's right about us having to strap him down to keep him from leaving. If there's one thing I know about Yusei, it's that he'll do scores of dumb, impulsive shit if he thinks it'll save _one_ person a little bit of trouble. You said he's convinced this fight is his, didn't you?"

"Well, yeah," I answer. "He didn't want to get any of the other Signers before leaving Neo Domino, even though we had one with us and I suggested that we go and get the other people. Actually, we made a sort of a deal—he wanted me to stay out of it entirely and threatened to drop me off here, then just go looking for the Dark Signers by himself. If Crow and I hadn't been awake when he left, he might still be bleeding out in the B.A.D. right now."

"God, what a _Yusei_ move," Evan retorts. "Sometimes it was like he'd open his mouth to make a suggestion and I'd already know it was going to be stupid and borderline suicide."

"I know that I have to break that deal, first thing," I say. "I can't help feeling like I could have helped him had I been closer, in that Line, or something. I could have Wasted him, or… or something. Been some sort of help."

"You get used to that feeling." Evan sets a couple of metal things on the floor. "So, first thing's first, we make it clear that he needs help. That's a good idea. No compromising; if he doesn't want our help, then he doesn't get to try to save anything. And I think we make it clear to him that he doesn't even get to think about doing something like this again, because it almost got him killed."

"Agreed," I reply. "He needs to stop thinking he's disposable when he's got plenty of people who care about him. He got me out of Arcadia, so I'm going to return to favor and help him in every way I can."

"And I've got a bone to pick with Kiryu," Evan exhales. "Never mind the fact that he wants my best friend dead."

"What would you say to him?"

"I… I don't know yet. I don't know if the Kiryu you saw is even a fraction of the one I remember."

"I didn't know him," I admit, "so I don't know. What was he like when you knew him?"

Evan heaves a tremendous sigh. "Has Yusei gone on any inspirational tirades with you yet?"

"I, um… I'm not sure. But he says some pretty inspirational stuff sometimes, I guess."

"Kiryu was like that, but on super steroids. He was the guy that could motivate you no matter what." There's a pause. "And he had a really, _really_ nice smile."

"Aw," I say.

"Oh, shut up." I can only see the back of his head, but his ears are bright red. "He was just a really good guy. It broke my heart when he resorted to killing. I feel like it's really cruel to try and hope that my Kiryu's still somewhere in there."

"You don't let yourself hope much, do you?"

"Not usually. Can't really afford it."

"Well," I say, " _I'm_ alive. Maybe he is, too."

There's something like a smile in his voice when he says, "Yeah, I guess." He shifts away from the trunk. "Aha! I knew I had this somewhere. Here, help me with this." He hands me a magnifying glass with a big crack down the center of it. "Take the handle off of it, will you? Be careful not to let the glass fall."

The outer portion of the handle is a little rusted, enough that I can snap it off and free the glass from it. Now I've got two halves of a glass in my hands. "Okay… what do I do now?"

"Hang on, I'm looking for some sandpaper. Sand down the sharp edges and stuff," he says. "I picked that up when I saw it because the glass split pretty much evenly. Normally, when I make bifocals I have to do the splitting by myself."

"Do you make glasses often?"

"Not really. Just, most of the time, for Nana and a group of old folks who live near Puzzle. Sometimes I fix Dr. Schmidtt's glasses; he had them from before the split, so they're pretty old, but they're the work of an actual optometrist."

"Wow."

"Yeah, most of the stuff I make is, uh… Light fixtures. Ice boxes. The occasional bicycle. Sometimes kids commission me for duel disks."

"Satellite's handyman, huh?"

"More or less. I started doing more when Yusei left. He'd offer to fix broken stuff around the neighborhood all the time." He throws a sanding block over his shoulder at me. "Go nuts. Not too nuts, though."

I start sanding down one of the shards, attempting to get a semi-ovular shape. "No optometrists, hm? Is Dr. Schmidtt the only practicing doctor?"

"Technically. We have nurses and stuff, but Dr. Schmidtt's professional description is a clinical surgeon. He's the only guy in the district who can fix stuff like what happened to Yusei."

"Wow."

"Yep. I mean, it's not so lucky for him that he got stranded here, but it's lucky for us. And I think he knows how much we need him."

"I'm glad he's here. Otherwise we'd be down a friend." I keep sanding the glass down. "Hey, what's the first thing you would you do if you got to the city?"

"Start going down the list of people I have shit with," he scoffs. "Jack and Goodwin and Divine." He sighs. "No, I'm kidding. _Partially_. Ah, I don't know what I would do. After what you've told me about it, I think if I ever got to the mainland, I would drive and drive until I found a place I _actually_ liked."

"That sounds reasonable." I have the first side sanded pretty nicely down, so I reach for the other piece of the magnifying glass. "I just want to be somewhere where Divine can't find me."

"If he ever comes here, you're safe with me," Evan says. "No offense, but I could use my powers for hours. And I have. I'm not afraid of some two-bit dictator who thinks he can spirit people away."

"Evan, he's… scary."

"So? I can be scary. I'm six four and I once wrestled a guy off of Jack, who's six three and almost like twice as strong as me. I can do things."

"Divine is different, though."

"I don't care. He hurt you, and if he comes here for you I'm gonna hurt him."

"I appreciate your support of me—"

"Good, that's all I need. Conversation over. Are you done with that yet?"

I hand him the finished piece of glass, and then I keep sanding the other one.

"Hey, also, I forgot to ask," he says, "when do I get cool tattoos?"

"They're— _illegal_ , doofus. Wait two more years and then you can do the thing."

"So? Hook me up, sport, you got the credentials for those four somewhere."

"Oh, be quiet. Seria took my fake from me the second or third time I went out with it."

"I'll have to build myself a tattoo machine, then!"

"Actually, that's not a terrible idea," I laugh.

"Oh, please don't indulge me, my scatterbrained ass doesn't need the encouragement."

"...what do you think you would get, anyways?" I say.

"I don't know," he replies. "Why the compass? The roses? The clouds and the birds?"

"I just… I thought they were pretty," I admit. "I like to look at them. Do I have to have a reason beyond liking the way they look?"

"'Course not. Maybe I'll figure out something that looks pretty, too."

"I can doodle it for you, maybe!"

"Put a schematic on me?" He laughs.

"Hey, I have artistic ability beyond drawing plans!" I stick my hand out to pass him the other lens. "Someday when I have enough paper, I'll prove it!"

"That'll be my next project," he says. "Here, hold these while I put my shit away." He hands me the glasses—it looks like he shaped the frames out of something like aluminum. I can't tell what the frames were before he twisted them up to hold the lenses, but I almost want to say that they were part of a watch or a metal ruler or something.

The steamer trunk locks with a heavy clunk and Evan hops to his feet. "Come on, I'm sure she'll want them before Martha makes her start her chores."

I pick up my coffee mug in my other hand. "So she's… nearsighted?"

"Yeah. That's the only reason the magnifying glass works best, but I'm out of luck sometimes if I don't find a bifocal lens. The people who are farsighted are harder to do because I need less powerful lenses. Nana has to take those off to read and stuff, anyways."

Downstairs, we catch Nana as she's putting her plate in the sink, and her face lights up as she trades glasses with Evan. "Thank you Evan!"

He ruffles her hair as she passes him by. "No problem, kiddo." He folds up her old glasses and stows them in his pocket—presumably to reuse later.

"That was really sweet," I say.

"Yeah, well, contrary to popular belief, I actually do have a kind bone in my body," he says.

"Just one, though," I remark, going for a sip of coffee to hide my smile.

He doesn't hide his. "Yeah, just one. _Smartass_."

My coffee's cold at this point, so I throw the rest in the sink and wash the mug out with warm water so Martha doesn't have to. I wonder where she's gone. Evan's gone back to the table and is reclining like he's going to put his feet up on it when Martha suddenly appears back in the doorway. Her almost somber expression makes everything in my head go quiet.

"Hey, you two," Martha says. "I thought I should let you know that Yusei's awake."

Evan jumps up. "Can we see him?"

"Yes, but be careful. He's very sore."

Evan speeds off, out of the kitchen, but I stand there with a twist in my stomach, watching him go. _Asleep for days and sore_. There's familiarity in that.

"Something the matter?" Martha asks.

"...how sore is he?" I say.

"...pretty sore. He had trouble sitting up."

It takes me a second to find a response.

"Martha," I say softly. "Do you have an icebox?"

She raises her eyebrows at me, but says, "yes, as a matter of fact, I do."

"Can I use some ice?"

Before I leave the kitchen, I grab three or four towels off of the kitchen counter, and I follow Martha down to the basement, where she opens up the icebox and I scoop a few handfuls of ice cubes into the towels.

"You're being very kind," she says when she realizes what I'm doing, "to someone you only met a few days ago."

"He let me out," I say. "And I don't wish what he's feeling on anyone."

I tie off my little sacks of ice as well as I can, and with my arms full of makeshift ice packs, I trudge up the stairs and down the hall to the door that's been closed for two days.

Inside, behind a curtain, I find Yusei only slightly sitting up, talking to Evan, who's sitting next to his bed. They both turn toward me, and I stop when I get a look at Yusei's face. He looks— _so_ tired. And he's covered in bandages from the waist up.

"Hey," he says gently. "Look at you. I'm seeing double."

"No talking about me right now," I say. When I reach the other side of the bed, I can see pale scars licking along his hands, some on his upper arms. Too pale to have been very recent, but they still make my stomach jump upward. "...here, hold still."

I set ice down on his stomach, but not where I remember the shrapnel protruding from, and around his sides. Air hisses out from between his teeth when they touch him, but only for a second; after that, he's lifting a hand to keep the one on his stomach where it is.

"Do you want to sit up?" I ask.

"I-I can't, it hurts too—"

"No, here." I crouch onto my knees and put a hand under his back, closer to the lower section of his spine, and press up just slightly at the same time I pull his pillow backward and upward, to put it against the headboard of the bed. When he's sitting up, I readjust the ice at his sides. He's looking at me with something like surprise. Evan looks on silently, his expression somber.

"Thanks," he breathes. "How did you—"

"I've done this enough times to know the drill," I admit, rising to stand again. "But this is the first time I _haven't_ been the one in the bed."

He isn't looking at me. "C—"

"Not C."

It takes him a second to understand. "...I'm sorry, Silvan."

"I'm sure Martha probably already read you the riot act about you staying in bed."

"And I was about to jump into mine," Evan chimes.

"Like it or not," I continue, "you did this to yourself by insisting on leaving and trying to take on whatever this is that you're apart of by yourself. I found you in the aftermath, out cold and practically bleeding out. Crow brought you here to get fixed back up. If you hadn't let me and Crow come, I promise you would be dead. If you try to do that again while you're in recovery, and you somehow get past Martha and Evan, I'm locking you in the basement. Next time, even when you light up, I'm not letting you go alone. People helping me is what got me out of Arcadia. People helping you is going to make sure that you stay with us a little longer. Don't be sorry, be _better_."

"Shit, Silvan," Evan retorts, "now my speech is totally obsolete."

Yusei looks up at me with pained eyes. "If I don't stop him, Kiryu is going to hurt more people than just me."

"Man," Evan scoffs, "get the _fuck_ in line. And don't start with either of us on this hero business, because I'm almost _positive_ that Silvan is about as not-here for it as I am. And I've known you about eight years longer than she has. Silvan told me all about how you light up like a goddamn Christmas tree, she told me about Kiryu, she told me about the Satellite-burning bullshit."

"Evan, I—"

"Hey, we talk, you listen," I say. "We're all in the loop here. Yusei, Evan told me some really intense, really heavy stuff yesterday. Kiryu meant something to you guys, and especially to my brother. This has become personal for more people than just you."

"Yusei, I am not afraid to die," Evan tells him. "If it means I can get closure with Kiryu, I'll walk right into it."

"Yeah? Well I am," Yusei retorts. " _I'm_ scared. And I'm even more scared of what could happen to you than what could happen to me. I don't care how fireproof you _think_ you are."

"You know damn well how _fireproof_ I am," Evan snaps. "You're not like me, Yusei. You're not like Silvan. You're just a regular guy who somehow ended up with the weirdest fucking birthmark in the history of birthmarks. You need to stop acting like me and realize that you're only human. No bells and whistles attached."

 _Fireproof_. I wonder what he means by _fireproof_.

"And maybe you forgot that I left my best friend in Neo Domino," I say. "She has to pay the same price for the same curse that you do. Whatever you are, whatever a Signer is, there are five of you. I think, if whatever's got its eyes on you wanted you to save the world all by yourself, there would only be one of you."

"Our whole lives, you've been trying to take the heat for everything. But you never let anyone help you," Evan remarks. "After being left here to wait for you to come back for three months, I'm making the executive decision that you're not allowed to go it alone anymore. You can't insist on worrying about us while ignoring the things you take on yourself. It's counterproductive, it's going to get you killed, and I swear to _gods_ , if you end up here one more time ready and prepped for a grave, I'm going to figure out a way to bring you back to life so I can beat the _shit_ out of you."

Yusei scoffs. "Well, you certainly haven't changed."

"Yeah, no shit."

"I asked you if you wanted me involved last time," I add. "I'm not asking this time, or ever again. I'm telling you right now that I'm involved. We both are. Don't be sorry. _Be better_. Understand?"

It takes him a second. But he nods.

"Can I at least apologize for leaving you here?" he says, looking up toward Evan.

"You know what?" My brother says. "I'm not that mad anymore. You somehow wandered into my sister, and you came back _almost_ unscathed. Somehow you took the list of people I seriously care about up from one to two. But, from this point on, we're in this together."

He doesn't say anything to that. But he does change the subject. "Where's Crow?"

"Left to see his kids," Evan replies. "I don't know when he's coming back. If he does."

"...Rally and the others? Saiga?"

"They're coming by later to check on you," I say. "They've been worried about you."

"And… my duel runner?"

" _Einsteinette_ over here took quite the crack into it," Evan tells him, gesturing to me.

"I-It's not totally fixed," I say quickly. "I still haven't checked to see what went wrong. I don't know anything about the circuits."

"You fixed my duel runner?" He asks hollowly.

"I-I tried making a schematic, too, so I knew where everything started off, and I could have an idea as to where it all went—"

"She took her own runner apart to get the gist of yours," Evan cuts in. "I looked at it, too. Everything is in the right place."

"Thank you," Yusei murmurs.

"...You're welcome."

I pin my eyes on Evan, who I find isn't really paying attention to me being here at all. He probably wants to talk to Yusei about everything that happened. Yusei was his friend first, after all, and there are things Yusei has been through that Evan deserves to know about.

"I'm going to give you guys a little time by yourselves," I say after a long pause.

"Or you could stay?" Yusei asks, almost hopefully.

"I think… you and Evan have some things to talk about," I continue. "But I'll be back later. Have Evan change the ice if it starts to melt."

Out of the corner of my eye, I see my brother look at me at last. He looks grateful.

On my way out, I shut the door behind me.

I spend the rest of the day mulling about, seeing if I can offer Martha help, and shuffling through the cards Evan gave me. Reading them nonstop to try and find any familiarity, to register their pictures and their descriptions in my mind.

I don't know how long Evan and Yusei talk, but it's a while before I see my brother. When I do, he seems very tired. I decide to let him tell me any details about their conversation when he decides that he wants to.

Rally, Taka, Nerve, and Blitz appear in the late afternoon and are able to talk to Yusei, too. He stays in bed, though, Martha going in and out to check on him, and I know I promised him that I would go back to see him, but I don't. I'm still thinking about the words I said to him, wondering if I should have said more. Should have said less.

 _Don't be sorry. Be better._ I wonder if that was too harsh. Still, I can't bring myself to go back in to him and try to clarify or add anything. What would that say, that I'm indecisive about my own demands? I wish it was as easy as just telling him that he needs to accept help.

I run my fingers up and down the lines of the tattoos on my arms and the scars dotting my skin, again and again and again. He was so softspoken. Looked so frail. I know I didn't see Yusei in that bed. Why did I see me? Why did I see Cipher instead? I spend almost all day trying to think it over, trying to rationalize the things I'm projecting on, in between sifting endlessly through my cards.

Before I know it, it's dark. Evan's telling me to come to bed. I sit on the floor in my spare room in my socks, the claps from my overalls unclipped and hanging at my waist, until the only sounds I can hear are my breath and the settling house.

I don't know what time it is, but I'm up and wandering, listening to the walls creak. I know everyone else is asleep. Even Martha, I think, has finally decided to rest. Yusei must have insisted that she go to bed, and that he'd be all right by himself through the night.

It's not so much curiosity that I'm up. This is a tiny house, and I've walked it a lot in the past couple of days. It's that feeling, again, like I'm being watched. It's what I felt right before Kiryu appeared and ran Yusei into the ground. I don't know what I'm looking for in staying up tonight and roaming around. Maybe for the feeling to go away. I don't know.

I pass through the main room, and a red glow catches my attention from somewhere in the kitchen. I creep in, curious as to what it's coming from—if Martha left a candle lit, or something—and I find Yusei sitting at the kitchen table, his jacket draped over his bare torso.

"You got up," I murmur, and it makes his head snap up toward me. "That's good."

"I guess," he whispers. "The pain's not much better." His arm, up on the table, is the source of the light. I stare at it for a second, remembering the first time I saw that mark glow, how it seemed to hurt him… And I wonder if it's hurting him now.

"What's happening?" I ask, pulling a chair out next to him.

He doesn't look at me; I see him swallow. "Aki."

Everything in me seems to go cold. "...is… is she okay?"

"I don't know," he admits. "But I think something found her."

 _Something_. "A Dark Signer?"

"I… I think."

"Kiryu?"

"I don't know." There's a pause. "What are you doing awake?"

"I just felt something." I flick my eyes toward his mark. " _That_. I guess. I couldn't sleep. It's the same thing I felt before we left for the B.A.D."

"Oh."

"Hey, are you okay?" I blurt.

"Besides the near inability to move?" He says flatly. "I don't know."

"Talk to me," I murmur. "I did too much talking today. How do I help you?"

"I'm not sure anybody can," he remarks. "I'm supposed to, what, save my home? But I can't even save myself. I couldn't save Kiryu, who used to be my friend. Now he wants to kill me. And he almost did."

"Are you afraid of that?"

"I—don't know."

"I think you do."

"If… If I die, everyone here will, too. You all keep saying that I need help, that I need to _ask_ for help, but I don't know what else to do other than try to solve it on my own. I got picked, why does it have to be anybody else's burden?"

"When are you going to realize that other people care about you? I—"

"I swear to _God_ , if you say you owe me _one more time_ ," he interrupts. "Screw whatever debt you think you owe me for Arcadia. You don't owe me anything. You don't have to help me to pay me back for anything."

"When," I say patiently, "are you going to realize that _I_ care about you? If you don't want me to try to repay you for what you did for me anymore, then that's fine. Fuck the debt, it doesn't exist." I swallow. "But I look at you and I see somebody who's hollow. I see somebody who lost every single one of his friends and blamed himself for it. Somebody who tried to fill himself back up by insisting that the closure he needed was retribution."

He stares at me.

"You can tell me I'm wrong. You can keep hiding behind ten layers of sarcasm and whatever knight-in-shining-armor skin you've apparently been donning since Kiryu was arrested. But, you know what? I see me in you. I look at you and I recognize C somewhere in there, because I lived in Arcadia for eight years blaming myself for everything Divine did to me. I couldn't even save myself, so why try to do anything? Why protest when I got punished, or why risk going outside more than once every few months? Why get up and bind my wounds and beat the fucking Dark Signers if I can't even win one single duel by myself?"

"Silvan, I almost—I almost _died_."

"Look at this," I demand. I pull my hair out of the way and point to a spot on my neck, right at the base of my collarbone. "What do you see?"

"I—"

" _Look_." I scoot my chair closer. "Tell me what you see."

"I-It's a bite mark. I don't know."

"No," I snipe. "That's an electrode scar. That's where I had an electrode in every time I was punished, clawed into my skin like a parasite. What you saw on my arms when you first met me were blood blisters, from when the electricity brought my blood to the surface and made scabs on the exit wounds. You know what else? I have another one _here_." I push the shoulder of my sleeve down to expose the side of my arm. "And _here_." And I continue pointing, down my side, down my leg, even where he can't see them beneath my overalls. "On both sides of me. Can you imagine how much electricity that is? For anywhere between five and ten minutes, not just when I went outside, but when I did anything Divine didn't like? However much damage it did, even now it makes my body try to destroy itself every time I use my powers. Because I'm no longer able to sustain the energy."

He looks completely taken aback. Like he never once thought that I would admit this to him. And he reaches out and brushes what I think is a tear away from my cheek.

"I almost died, too," I tell him softly; there's pressure building in my throat, threatening to break my voice up into sobs, but I keep going. If I shut my eyes to blink away the tears, I know I'm going to see the white walls of the testing area, I'm going to go back to being in the back of an elevator and holding my breath, hoping and praying Divine wouldn't find me. "I almost died a lot. A-And I don't remember when I started disobeying on purpose because I _wanted_ to die."

"Silvan," he murmurs. "I'm sorry."

"I'm not telling you this because I want you to be sorry. And I'm certainly not telling you because 'suck it up, other people have it worse,' or whatever. I'm telling you because C didn't want to leave Arcadia—she didn't want to burden anyone else with her mistakes and she thought she deserved to die. Not to be saved. I see me in you, and you know what? You made me want to leave. Suddenly I knew that it wasn't worth it to stay, because there was a place I could go where people missed me and might even care about me despite how broken I know I am."

"You are _not_ broken."

"But neither are _you_ ," I say. "This deity—this Crimson Dragon thing—chose you because it knows what you're capable of. _You_ grew upward from nothing, _you_ lived and _you_ thrived. _You_ built a duel runner and _you_ won the Fortune Cup and you became twice what you thought you could be because you're _you_. You have every capability you've always had, Kiryu changes nothing." I reach out tentatively, toward the bandages around his stomach, and he flinches when I touch them, but he doesn't draw back. "This was your electrode. You're going to live despite it. You're gonna be you despite it. Everybody else who cares about you, including me, is going to be with you every step of the way, and we're all going to get out alive."

He says nothing. For a second, I wonder if he stopped listening. If this was all for nothing. Then he reaches to close his arm around my shoulders.

A second passes. Then two.

I lean into him and curl my arm under his, grateful for the half-hug. Grateful that I could tell him what he's done for me. What I want to do for him. How many days and nights had I wished somebody would do the same for me?

We sit there in silence together, and eventually I feel a brazen spike of unease as his mark flickers and finally goes out.


	20. Called Out A Warning

In the morning, I sit beside Evan with my cup of coffee and he shuffles through the Psychic deck Kawasaki gave me. My Machine-type cards are set out beside them, sorted again by their type.

"What is this deck, burn?" He asks.

"Support," I say. "It's a lot of Life Point manipulation and Banishing stuff."

"Hm." He holds up a Monster card—Cipher Soldier. "Can I set this on fire."

The statement is so deadpan and sudden that I start to laugh; coffee spews down my chin, and that makes _Evan_ start laughing.

"It's too early for happiness," Yusei retorts, hobbling into the kitchen in just his jeans and bandages coiling up his waist. "Putting the two of you together is the worst idea I've ever had."

"Put a shirt on," Evan whines in reply, throwing Cipher Soldier at him.

"Give me a break, Martha just changed my bandages," Yusei tells him.

"No breaks," Evan says, reclining to put his feet up on the table. "Now that I have Silvan the teasing doubles."

"Please do not."

"But I'm so good at it!"

"This has been my whole life so far," Yusei remarks, inclining his head toward me as if asking for help.

"I'm gonna not pick sides on this one," I say. "But you kids have fun."

"You'll come around," Evan remarks.

Yusei pulls a chair out at the table and sits down very slowly, looking pained the whole way down.

"What did Martha say?" I ask.

"She— _ahh_ ," he flinches, like just slouching a little brings him pain, and straightens up a bit. "She said the stitches are going to be pretty tender for a while. But I am healing. She said I'm already looking a little better."

"Well, you're not going anywhere," Evan says. "You've got time."

Yusei cuts his eyes to me. "Right."

"I saw that," my brother scoffs.

I clear my throat a little. "Evan, do you get news around here? Like from the city?"

"Not unless it's huge. Or it has to do with us. Like, everybody saw the Fortune Cup. The second somebody found out Yusei was competing in it, everybody wanted to watch. I built so many televisions last week, you have no idea." He looks between me and Yusei. "Why?"

"I want to know if something happened in Neo Domino last night," Yusei admits. "I feel like something bad went down. But I don't know what."

"And you're going to, what, _road trip_ it over there when you can barely even sit down?" Evan makes a cutting motion across his throat, like 'stop talking'. "Cute idea, but not gonna happen."

"I think it involved Silvan's friend," Yusei tells him slowly. "Aki Izayoi?"

"Arcadia girl," Evan says lightly. "You've certainly mentioned her."

"She's a Signer, too," I say. "If Yusei says she was in danger, then I'm worried about her."

"So you can feel what happens with everyone else?" Evan muses. "That's interesting."

"We're… triggered by each other, somehow," Yusei tells him. "I'm still not sure about how it works." There's a pause. "Actually, I have no clue how it works."

"Did you tell him about the Nazca thing?" Evan asks, elbowing me.

"Nazca thing?"

"Oh!" I exclaim. "That's right! Okay… so I've been thinking about Kiryu and the fire that appeared during your duel. I've read about these carvings in Peru called the Nazca Lines. Historians say that ancient Peruvian people carved them in the ground to request things of their gods. Water, usually, is what I read. The mark that Kiryu bore was a Nazca Line called The Man."

"Okay…" Yusei looks bewildered. "What does that have to do with us? The _non_ -Dark Signers?"

"Remember what Yanagi said?" I ask. "That one day in Saiga's apartment? Yanagi mentioned that your mark comes from people that worshipped star-gods. I know the cultures aren't nearly the same, but they might have ties through that."

"Through what?"

"Astrocentric cultures believed a lot of the time that their gods looked upon them from up in the sky. It's why the Nazca Lines can only be seen in their fullest forms from the air, because the gods could only see them if they were big enough. The Crimson Dragon is a star-god, isn't it? Maybe they're related. I don't know. I'm just spitballing."

"Whatever little tiny bits help, I guess." Yusei gets halfway through a shrug before he cringes again, probably from moving something wrong again. "You're the encyclopedia, here."

"As a person who has barely enough memory to encompass a year," I say, "I think that's the strangest thing I've ever been called."

Martha comes striding into the kitchen and smacks Evan's leg as she passes him. "Feet off the table. I did not raise you in a barn."

"Yes mom," Evan says flatly, putting his feet back on the floor.

I chug the rest of my coffee—which doesn't turn out to be as much as I thought—to hide my laughter. A second later I say, "...Martha, is there any more coffee?"

"Silvan, you've had so much coffee in the past three days, I'm surprised you're not dead of a heart attack," Evan scoffs.

"I can't help it! Divine never let me have coffee. He always said it would stunt my growth, so I was never allowed to drink it."

After that, Martha wordlessly puts the entire pot of coffee down in front of me.

"...can I be allowed coffee?" Yusei pipes up.

"No caffeine until you can sit down properly," Martha says. "The only thing that's going to heal you up is sleep."

"I assume that means a less cranky Yusei," I add. "That's a plus."

"Hey, watch it," Yusei retorts.

"Sounds like somebody's already in need of a nap."

"He always needs a nap," Evan says. "Mostly because you never sleep."

"I slept last night, kind of."

"' _Kind of_ '?"

Last night, I sat at the table with him for a really long time. I don't know how long. It was comforting for me, at least, to be able to be there and sit in that silence and sift through those memories that I'd opened up in telling him more about Arcadia. When I told Evan there was a lot of shouting and crying, and it felt so freeing to get it all out that way… but the silence was like acceptance. Certainly not on my end with what I've been through, but I think, last night, I got _something_ through to Yusei. He definitely seems a little cheerier this morning.

"Can I at least be allowed to take a look at my duel runner?" He asks.

"You gotta put a shirt on for that," Evan retorts.

Yusei makes a show out of rolling his eyes.

"If you take someone with you and don't stay out too long, feel free," Martha says from the kitchenette. "I want you sleeping at least twelve hours."

"That's a pretty rigorous healing schedule," I say.

"Can't save Satellite if you have a rip in your side," Martha says over her shoulder. I look at Yusei, who I could swear is a little red in the face.

"Whoever wants to come with me can," Yusei begins, attempting—with visible difficulty—to stand up.

"Not so fast," Martha retorts. She puts down a plate of grapes and apple slices down in front of him. "Breakfast first. Before I can't stop you from trying to run anywhere."

"I'll only be out there for a second, and I'm already halfway standing," he complains.

"Eat," I say, which makes everyone turn their heads toward me, "or I'm taking your duel runner apart."

Yusei squints at me. "Have _you_ eaten?"

" _Yes_ , I have," I say confidently.

"Well I guess I deserved that, then." He lowers himself back down into his chair and pulls the plate closer to him so he doesn't have to reach very far.

And, with that small victory underneath my belt, I pick up the coffee pot Martha left me and refill my cup.

When Yusei is finished, Evan and I both trail outside after him. Evan follows particularly close to him, in case Yusei needs somebody to help him walk. He's leaning very heavily on his right side. When he gets to his duel runner, Evan and I both have to help him into a crouch so that he can try to open a side panel.

"What did you do, exactly?" Yusei asks, his voice strained from having to put so much effort into crouching down.

"Okay, wait." I hop up and maneuver around to my duel runner; in preparation for this, I left my schematics notebook in the helmet compartment on the backside of Hiraeth. I pop the hatch open, grab my book, and start back around to where Evan and Yusei are crouched beside Yuusei Go.

"Here, this is the schematic I did." I flick through pages on my way back around to him and my brother. "So, your duel disk snapped, your front tire blew, and your hood crunched itself up a little." I hand him the book. The first page is your duel disk, the backside is your runner. I started with the duel disk and I did my best to put everything back the way it was—"

"You drew these off of looking through broken pieces?" Yusei remarks.

"I-I mean, just mostly the duel disk's pieces. I didn't take anything out of your duel runner that didn't need to be removed."

"Still, this is almost a full schematic!" He tilts my admittedly messy drawing toward Evan. "The thicker lines? I think you draw over your sketches, but otherwise this looks almost exactly like ours did."

My brother shrugs. "She has a talent."

"A-Anyways," I say, wringing my hands and averting my eyes from them, "I fixed all the physical stuff. And everything I did should show in that. Evan told me to leave everything else to you, because you'd want to do it, so I haven't… whatever went wrong, if something malfunctioned, I don't know what it is."

"Well, you did the hard part. And I really appreciate it."

Heat runs up into my cheeks. "I'm just glad I could be of some help."

"Do you want me to run down to the subway?" Evan asks. "I'm almost positive the guys kept your diagnostic stuff."

"...can you carry all that over here?"

"I'm a big strong boy, Yusei," Evan scoffs. "It'll take me ten minutes. Less, if I break my accelerator."

"Do you need Silvan to go with you?"

"Nah, I'll be okay. Besides, I should leave you some company while you're still allowed to be outside. Before Martha locks you in your room for twelve hours." Evan snaps his goggles down over his eyes. "You two play nice, I'll be right back."

I watch my brother go jogging toward where his duel runner is parked, near the front of the house. Then he's a streak of silver shooting out the front gate and into the distance.

When I turn back to Yusei, I find that he's flipping through other pages in my notebook and heat rushes upward into my head immediately. My hand shoots out toward him before I can think to stop it. "T-Those are… just other projects, and stuff…"

He seems to notice the reflex, and he holds the book out toward me without even questioning me. "Sorry. I should've asked."

"T-That's all right."

"I've never seen your work before—I mean, forgetting the fact that we've known each other about a week now. But if you can draw up entire plans from a few bits and pieces, then you have a real skill."

"Well, I had a little help," I admit. "I wasn't sure exactly what to expect of a duel runner, so I kind of… well, I cracked my duel runner open. It was already functional, so I figured it would be a good example."

"You took your duel runner apart?" He asks. "For _me_?"

"I-It's not that big a deal… I promise."

He shakes his head. "Between this and what you said last night? So far you've done more for me in six or seven days then some people I know have done for me in my whole life."

"I'm just happy you're okay," I say bleakly.

"Me too. I guess. But I'm still worried about Kiryu coming back here." He heaves a sigh. "And Aki."

I swallow. "Aki can take on a lot. I've seen her push through some difficult stuff. She's one of the most resilient people I know." But Yusei beat her in a duel, despite her powers. That tells me it's more than likely that she could lose to a Dark Signer, if Yusei lost to one. But there's no way I'm admitting that out loud. If she could be dead… I'm not admitting that out loud if it would save my life. "As for Kiryu, what? Afraid he's going to come back to finish you off?"

He doesn't say anything. But his eyes tell me everything I need to know.

"You know Evan is probably going to be the first to get to him if he shows up here, right?"

"Don't get me wrong, Silvan, I love your brother dearly, but he can get way in over his head."

"Funny, he said the same about you."

Yusei rolls his eyes. "I'm sure he did. And he's also probably the most put-together guy I know. On the outside, at least. Kiryu's the one thing that messes him up, and he always has been."

"Yeah, he… he let me in on that one," I murmur.

"He trusted you fast." He sounds… surprised?

"I trusted him fast, too."

"Then you should know that he throws logic out the window when it comes to Kiryu. At the very least, he used to. And what he said yesterday about wanting closure… he's going to get himself killed. I don't want to believe that this Dark Signer Kiryu is the person that used to be my friend, but if he isn't, then who tried to kill me? And will he recognize Evan enough to spare him?"

"Do we even know why he wants to kill you?"

"No," Yusei huffs. "I never did anything to him. He's the one that went on a murder spree. All of us—Crow, Evan, Jack, and I—tried to convince him to stop, but he wouldn't. And when he got arrested we all pretty much split up. None of us wanted him gone. In fact, he was what kept us together."

"Maybe figuring out his motives will be a good place to start," I suggest.

"But will he just… _stop_? If somebody asks him to?" Yusei runs a hand through his hair. "I've been thinking about it. If there are five Signers, does that mean there are five Dark Signers? What did they get chosen by? Are they bound to this, too?"

I pin my eyes on the mark on his arm. Kiryu was marked by a Nazca Line, that much is true. Never mind _what_ marked him.

"What if," I muse, "one of you has to kill the other? To stop all of this? That, at least, would make a killing motive make sense."

His face—usually a warm shade of brown—loses a startling amount of its warmth. "Here's a fun idea. Let's change the subject."

"...right. My bad. Um…"

"Am I allowed to talk about you? No more 'C'?"

"Y-Yeah. I figured it was time to make the switch. I… I didn't want to be stuck in that forever. At the same time, though, I didn't know if I was allowed to go back to 'Silvan'. If I was too different to revert to who I was before Arcadia."

"Even if you're different, your name's still yours. Divine was never allowed to take it from you in the first place."

"It's still weird… saying it. Hearing it, and realizing 'oh, that's my name'. But I like it so much better than Cipher."

"Me too," he says. There's a brief second of silence before I feel his eyes on me and he says, "You're already looking better. Martha's making you eat and all that."

"You know what?" I say. "I _feel_ better. Before I got here I was scared nothing would be familiar, or maybe Evan wouldn't like me…"

"If I thought he wouldn't like you, _I_ would've just kept you. There was no doubt in my mind that he'd love you like he did when we were ten the moment he met you again."

"You sure have quite a bit of faith in me," I say sheepishly.

"I'm just returning the favor. I'm grateful for the friend you've been to me so far."

"Me too," I reply.

One corner of his mouth turns up a little. It's the closest I've ever seen him to actually smiling. It makes me remember that morning in Daimon, when he looked like he was dripping sunlight. Even tired and hurt, he's a boy out of a painting.

I cut my eyes away from him when I hear a sort-of buzzing sound that rattles my bones. My hair blows up into the air as a helicopter passes over us, bending trees in its direction. I watch it go, remembering what Yusei said about the Bureau not wanting to land a helicopter near the Residential area. I have to wonder where it's going—if Goodwin might be dropping some other poor sap off to walk straight into his death—when the helicopter suddenly starts to descend almost _right outside the gate_.

"Whoa," I say, heaving myself onto my feet. "Are… Are they here for you?"

"I-I don't know," he stutters. "I don't even know who ' _they_ ' are. Here, help me up."

I help him carefully onto his feet, and together we go back into the house through the rear kitchen door. When find see Martha, we see her squinting out the window. " _Yusei_?"

"I don't know anything about whoever is here, I _swear_ ," he says, his voice sounding like he's noted her suddenly very stern tone. "I didn't contact anyone, I didn't tell anyone I was coming here—"

"Well, if I'm accepting company for you, you'd better get yourself dressed."

I beeline after Yusei back into his room at the end of the hall, and I kick it partially closed behind us. "Do you think it's Goodwin?" I ask.

"If it's Goodwin, how did he find me?" Yusei replies. He wrestles his shirt haphazardly over his head, and I have to help him pull it down his torso because he can't bend his left arm enough to do it himself.

"Would he even come himself?" I ask. "Or would he send someone else?"

"I don't know. Guess we'll have to find out."

I help him pull his jacket on, too, and he starts toward the door. I throw his gloves at him when he's halfway out into the hall, and he stifles a 'thanks' as he continues back toward the kitchen to see who landed a helicopter twenty feet from Martha's front door. All I can think is, boy, what a time for Evan to leave on an errand.

After waiting in the empty bedroom for a little bit, I creep out into the hallway to see if I can catch a glimpse of who's come knocking on Martha's door.

I find… Yusei, sitting at the kitchen table, in this strange, awkward silence with two other people on the other side of the table: a man and a woman, both looking like they're somewhere in their mid-to-late forties.

Yusei perks up instantly when he sees me. "Silvan! Come sit down with us?"

"What's… _hello_ ," I say softly. I don't recognize either of the people here. And they look too normal to be Bureau workers. "Who are _you_?"

"This is Mr. and Mrs. Izayoi, Silvan," Yusei tells me. Slowly. Like he's trying not to gauge a bad reaction. But that name pounds around in my mind like a drumbeat. _Izayoi_.

The lamp on the wall by the back door— _shatters_. I breathe in fast, pressing my hands over my eyes, as if to keep myself and the heat flushing upward in my cheeks from escaping outward.

"I-I'm sorry," I hear myself saying. "I'm sorry—"

"Hey, it's okay." Yusei must have gotten up when the lamp shattered, because now I feel his hands pressed to my shoulders. "It's okay. Will you sit down with us?"

"I-I don't want to."

"Can you tell me why?"

"A-Aki said they were horrible to her. They sent her away—"

One of the table chairs screeches as someone forces it backward, away from the table. A man's voice says, "You knew my daughter, then? My Aki?"

"Be quiet!" I rasp. "She isn't _your_ anything! You drove her to Arcadia! You're… You're the reason she's the way she is!"

"It was never on purpose! I swear! Please, you must believe me! My wife and I have been searching for her ever since she left us, you must believe me when I say that we never wanted her gone!"

"Can you breathe for me?" Yusei asks. His voice is a wonderful, soft reprieve from all of the shouting. "Try to calm down? No more shattering lamps. Can you come sit down with me? Mr. and Mrs. Izayoi want to talk about Aki and something that happened to her. If you don't like something they say, you don't have to stay anymore. I won't make you. But I'm asking that you give them a chance."

I peel my hands from my face and look at him. I don't know what makes me say yes. But his eyes are so earnest that I let him lead me to the table and sit me down beside him. I watch his face as he suppresses a wince and tries to sit as fluidly as possible.

Martha comes in from the other room with a tray of tea cups and moves to set it down on the table. When I look at her, I feel like a different person. She _looks_ at me like I'm a different person.

"You see," Mr. Izayoi begins, staring down at the table, "my daughter, Aki, was hurt in the incident at the Arcadia Movement."

"What do you mean, 'incident'?" Yusei asks.

"A-A fire started in a twenty block diameter near downtown," he stutters. "All of the news reports say that there were strange lights, and some claim that there were monsters."

I think of the Monster that Kiryu summoned that nearly killed Yusei. Ccapac Apu. A Dark Signer must've found Aki, then. Now there's no doubt in my mind.

"Whatever happened, the Arcadia Movement was the center of everything. It practically fell apart. My daughter was trapped in the building… she's been in the hospital since last night, and they're afraid she may have sustained damage to her head… They don't yet know if she has any hope of waking up."

A Dark Signer found Aki, and now she could be dead. I left her there with Divine, who never once taught her to protect herself through any means other than destruction, and now she could be dying. Or already dead.

Aki's mother starts to cry. Martha, who's since gone to the stove to take what I think might be tea off of the burner, takes a teacup off of the untouched tray in the middle of the table and puts it down in front of Mrs. Izayoi. Her husband puts his hand on top of hers before he continues, and Martha fills her cup with tea.

"They've tried everything... And we're her parents, for crying out loud! I don't know why _we_ can't do anything..."

I want to shout. Or cry, or something. But I feel very hollow and dry. The thought of Divine or Arcadia or going back, or anything like that, makes any feeling vanish from my bones.

If Arcadia was damaged, and Aki could be at death's door, where's Divine? He certainly would have stopped Aki's parents from getting anywhere near her if he were still around. And, what happened to Seria and Kawasaki? All those other psychics that were living there?

"If you had tried at all, ever," I say, "Aki would never have gotten within two feet of Arcadia. What happened to her is on you. And I don't know why you're here, presumably asking for somebody else's help. I don't believe you've tried to really do or fix anything."

Mr. Izayoi stares at me. "Believe me, miss..."

I swallow and force my eyes up from the table toward his. I see nothing of my friend, the pretty, rosy-cheeked girl I love, in his face.

What comes out of my mouth is, "My name is Cipher."

I see him swallow, too. "Cipher, if there was something we could do, we'd do it. To be honest... I blame myself for the state my daughter's been in."

"You _should_."

I can feel Yusei's eyes on me.

"It was always... _hard_ to spend time with my daughter. I work in the city Senate, and only rarely do I get an hour or two at home, even now. But I always tried my best to spend what time I did have with her."

That, at least, matches what Aki used to tell me. A little girl in a big empty house.

"She loved to duel. Whenever I had the chance, I would duel with her, but there was one time when it went horribly amiss."

"I know the story," I say plainly.

"...I had to leave in the middle of one of our duels... It upset her, and she turned one of her cards over to try to keep the duel going, but the damage it dealt was real. I was frightened—can you believe that— _frightened_ by my own child. In the heat of everything, I called her a monster."

"And do you know what?" I say. "She believed you."

"I-I wish I could take that moment back—I would do anything to go back and fix it."

I don't say anything.

"Since she developed those abilities... I never knew how to deal with her." He shakes his head. "I did the worst thing possible—I sent her away. I sent her to Duel Academia, thinking that they could teach her to control her powers, but they just isolated her... Then one night, she ran home and saw me and my wife having dinner together. I'm not sure if she thought we were happy without her, or what, but she shattered our front windows and vanished. This morning was… was the closest we've been to her in nearly four years."

"Whether or not it was your intention, you drove your daughter away, and it's your fault that she's hurt the way she is," I tell him.

"We've tried to help her! I swear! Please, one of you must be able to help her!"

"I'm sorry, Senator Izayoi," Yusei starts, "but I'm not sure if—"

"You must help!" Mr. Izayoi exclaims. He grabs Yusei's wrist over the table. "Please! Jack Atlas said that you helped her during the Fortune Cup! You must be able to help her now!"

Yusei yanks his hand away at the mention of Jack. "Jack Atlas has no clue what he's talking about."

"If she wakes up, she'll want nothing to do with you," I say. "You must understand that. You shut her out, and now she's going to shut you out."

"W-We're the only ones there for her now!"

Her hated parents, the only ones there for her? Where the hell is Divine? Did he skip out on his prized pupil the moment she lost a duel? Is he waiting for her to wake somewhere, so he can spirit her away again? He can't be… _really_ gone, can he?

In which case, now everyone Aki knows has left her. Even me. I left her to save myself. But if I did go back to Neo Domino to try to help her, would she even want me?

Would Divine be there, waiting, smiling, marveling over his perfect trap?

"Excuse me?" Martha's voice shakes me up out of my thoughts. "What are the two of you thinking? You have a friend who needs your help, and you're acting like you're just going to stay out of it!"

Yusei makes a grab for my hand. "Can we talk for a second? _Alone_?"

Martha puts her hands on her hips; she and the Izayois watch as Yusei pulls himself up onto his feet and ushers me down the hall. He shuts the door to his room behind us, and the first thing he says is, "Are you okay?"

"W-What?"

"' _Cipher_ '? Are we back to this now? What's wrong?"

"It's not that I'm not worried about Aki," I say, ignoring the first question that I don't have the answer to. "Because I am. _Worried_. But I think it's shitty and a little uncharacteristic of her parents to show up _now_ and say they care."

"Well, it seems like they do care to me. And, who says Divine hasn't been keeping them from seeing her?"

"I-I don't know where Divine is! If I go there and try to help her, who says he won't be waiting there? Who says he didn't set this up because he knew I would want to help her?"

"Aki's parents don't really seem like the type to continually sell their only child out to a sociopath," Yusei says. "And I hate to say it, but they mentioned Jack. Something tells me that he's the one that sent them here."

"So you _don't_ think this is a trap."

"No, I think Aki did get seriously hurt, I think Jack might have been the one who tried to go to her rescue, and I think he didn't have a very successful time. He's been Goodwin's lapdog as of late, so it makes sense that he'd know where I am now, and that he'd know exactly where to find me. Though I don't know why he tried to sicc Aki's parents on _me._ "

"You told me you tried to get her to leave Arcadia, too, when you dueled," I say. "That's as public as it gets. Jack must've thought you'd gotten through to her."

"I don't know. I certainly didn't think so. He has no clue you're alive, I don't even know if he even _remembers_ you, so the only thing that makes sense is him sending them to look for me." He sighs. "But I think we should go. I know you're worried and I am, too. I also can't stay cooped up here forever."

"You can barely stand up," I retort.

"Details," he says, waving me off. "We'll be careful."

"What if we can't do anything? What if Divine is there?"

"I know it might be tough, but let's be optimistic. If Aki's parents are involved, I sincerely don't think that Divine would be around."

"...okay," I murmur.

He gives my shoulder a squeeze, like he's giving me an affirmation. Like he's caught on to the comfort that physical interaction gives me. "Let's go, then. Trust me when I say that everything's going to turn out all right."

I follow him back into the kitchen, where we find that the mood has changed. Evan's suddenly there, knee deep in a conversation with Aki's parents, looking like the poster child for charm and charisma. He certainly wasn't gone very long. He glances up when Yusei and I enter and says, "Oh, hey, you two. Going to Neo Domino without me again?"

"In our defense, you volunteered to go get stuff," Yusei tells him.

"Oh, yeah, because we all knew that a helicopter was going to land right outside as soon as I was gone. You're welcome for lugging your diagnostics system halfway across the sector, by the way."

"Thanks." Yusei crosses his arms. "So you're coming with us?"

"Yep. If you think I'm letting you both go back to Neo Domino without me, you're even crazier than you act."

"Thanks," Yusei repeats. "Senator Izayoi, we're going to do our best to see what we can do for Aki."

All of the tension in his shoulders very visibly releases. " _Thank you_. I-I'm truly in your debt."

Martha, who's been leaning on one end of the table like she was listening to a story before we came back, straightens up and says, "Evan, you look after the both of them. I want you all back in once piece, and I want you home by dinner. And, Yusei Fudo, if you're so much as a _minute_ late because you're still out playing hero, _I_ will be the one taking your duel runner apart."

Yusei, almost bleakly, says, "Yes, Martha."

"Now, go get your girlfriend," Martha finishes.

"I _barely_ know her," he retorts. "It's more likely that _Silvan_ would be dating her at this point."

Everybody turns their eyes on me, and I feel heat rush upward into my cheeks.

"See? She's bright red." Yusei rubs his hand along my shoulder. "Let's go get Silvan's girlfriend, everybody."

"She's—not... my girlfriend," I choke out, shuffling along beside him and out the back door. I follow him around the side of the house, toward his duel runner.

"From the way you've talked about her?" Evan retorts. "You _wish_ she was."

I have no clue what I'm going to say in answer, so I hit Yusei as hard as I can in the shoulder instead. Evan flinches out of my way before my fist can hit his arm.

"Watch it, I'm still in recovery," Yusei says, but he's laughing at me. I'm grateful when his voice gets more serious. "We're going to help her, Silvan, I promise. And if you want, it'll be on your terms."

"Can I confess something?"

"Anything."

"...I'm afraid Divine will be there. I know you said it's likely he won't but I'm scared."

"Good, I've been needing to punch someone in the fucking face for a few days now," Evan retorts.

Thinking about Evan trying to take on Divine in the middle of us trying to help Aki makes me feel like I'm shrinking.

"How about," Yusei pipes up, "we say he won't be there, and nobody has to worry about it. And the universe will listen because it owes all three of us."

"Okay, yeah, fine, that sounds fair," my brother states.

He takes his wrist dealer from where Martha's been insisting he keep it—out of sight and out of mind—in the helmet compartment of his runner. I watch him clip it on, then suddenly reach to disengage his duel disk from his runner.

"What are you doing?" I say warily.

He shrugs. "Just in case."

I get this image of him breaking something, like an arm or a shoulder, because he got himself into some other Physicalized duel. Whether it be with Aki, or… I don't know.

So, Evan and Yusei watch me disengage _my_ duel disk from my duel runner. I look Yusei dead in the eye and say, "Just in case."

Without missing a beat, Evan says, "You want the Psychic deck back?"

My Machine-type cards, in the pouch on my belt, are what are on my mind. But I'm not sure yet. I don't even know if I'll need them yet. "I'll let you know."

In an uneasy silence, the three of us start away from the house and toward where the helicopter touched down.

After a while, Yusei says, "Hey Evan, by the way, what did we walk into back there? You all looked like you were best friends."

"I make things for way too many adults, so I've dealt with all kinds of 'em." Evan shrugs. "You tell them your name and ask what's on their mind and suddenly they have on a face like 'this is a person I would like to marry my child'."

"I don't trust them," I say. "They're part of the reason Aki's in Arcadia."

"Yeah, I figured they were off the trust train when they referred to you as 'Cipher'. We're going to get this Aki thing sorted out, okay? I'm taking that her folks are genuinely sorry."

"Yeah, we'll see," I mutter.

The helicopter is parked a ways out of the front wall of the house; there's a clearing in the trees where it sits, and the man in the cockpit looks nothing like anyone the Bureau would hire. This trip, then, is entirely personal.

I stand in between Evan and Yusei, waiting for Aki's parents to catch up to us, feeling tiny and far away from the present.

Feeling, at least right now, like I'm walking straight back into a life of being C.


	21. Requiem

I hate air travel. I hate it so much. Being on a helicopter where I can see everything passing underneath us is so unsettling that I feel like I'm on the verge of passing out. It's a million times worse than being in the helicopter with my duel runner; at least, there, I couldn't see anything we were passing over.

I sit, strapped in, between Evan and Yusei, eyes squeezed shut, imagining that the rumbling sound under me is everything _except_ a helicopter engine.

Though Evan's got a hand on my arm, like he's trying to comfort me, he asks, "Hey, you told me you came over here on a helicopter."

"Yeah, but I couldn't see the ground," I breathe.

"Just don't look out the window. You'll be fine. We'll be there in no time."

"H-How does this feeling not freak you the _fuck_ out?"

"I've built some pretty faulty shit that still works, so I think I can trust a professionally made helicopter not to let me fall to my death."

"We're going over downtown," Yusei, to my right, says as he stares absentmindedly out of his window.

"G-Great," I say.

"Okay, White Knuckles, we'll be fine. We're almost there, okay?" Evan says.

"...uh. Hey, Silvan?" Yusei's hand skims over my shoulder. "I know you definitely don't want to look out the window, but I think you should see this."

"I am going to vomit all over you," I groan.

"Please do not. I'm serious. You have to look at this. The carvings."

The… _carvings_? I swallow the bile forming in my throat and only force an eye open out of curiosity. We're so fucking far away from the ground, and it makes my head spin even faster, but out the window… Blocks and blocks of buildings below us have been leveled. In the very center of all of the destruction, I see my home and my prison: Arcadia, the only thing left standing for a long way on all sides.

The worst part is that I can see divots in the ground, deeper than where everything that was destroyed must have been before. They're overlapped across each other in some places, and it takes me a second to recognize and recall them after we've passed over the damaged area.

"Those were Nazca Lines," I say. "The Hummingbird and The Lizard."

"She fought _two_ of them?" Yusei breathes.

At this point, I don't feel sick because of the height. I feel sick because I'm almost _sure_ that my friend is dead.

Not a few minutes later, we land abruptly enough that it makes my teeth knock together. Then Yusei, Evan, and I unfold ourselves from the back row of seats, and Mr. and Mrs. Izayoi join us from the cockpit. From where we landed, I follow on wobbly legs as we go through a door and take a back stairwell down into the hospital.

The clean, sharp smell of antiseptic hits me as soon as we exit the stairway and start down a long hallway painted a pale blue-green. This is what the testing area smelled like. This is what my room smelled like some mornings, when I woke up and Seria was already changing my bandages or hot pads or whatever.

" _Hey_." Evan rests a guiding hand on my shoulder. "Hang in there."

I've pretty much lost most of my ability to speak, so all I can do is keep walking and hoping I don't lose my nerve and, in the worst case, pass out.

Aki's parents get us into the Intensive Care ward, which is eerily empty besides the occasional person in scrubs or a white surgical mask. The room that we enter has a big plated glass window that looks into a big medical theatre. And I see Aki, a spot of rosy red and pink, the only color in a room in monochrome. There's an ECG and an IV drip next to her bed.

She's— _alive_. I can sense that, at least. If she were dead, I wouldn't be able to feel her. I think I would breathe a sigh of relief if I didn't still feel so sick.

"Yusei! C!"

It's Rua and Ruka? They rush toward us, almost like they're going to barrel into Yusei.

"Whoa, whoa, wait," Yusei says, putting his hands out. "I'm glad to see you guys, but I need to take a rain check on getting barreled over. I'm a little fragile right now."

"I-I _knew_ something bad had happened!" Ruka exclaims. "I'm glad you're all right."

"Yeah, me too," he confesses. "But how is Aki?"

The twins' faces get much less happy. Rua says, "Um… not good."

"Hopefully we can fix that," Yusei responds.

"What are you guys doing here?" I ask.

"We were in Arcadia when it collapsed!" Rua replies. "We thought it might be a good idea to see if Aki would join up with the rest of the Signers, but… it… it didn't…" he trails off. "...go very well."

"Yeah." I swallow. "So you two saw the Dark Signers?"

"Just one of them," Ruka says. "A woman named Misty."

Not Kiryu, _obviously_. I figured that when I saw the different markings in the earth. Kiryu bears The Man, so there's this other woman named Misty who either bears The Lizard or The Hummingbird. But now I'm almost positive that there have to be five Dark Signers to combat the five regular ones, just like Yusei suggested.

"Oh, look." Evan, beside me, suddenly takes on this tone of voice that's way too saccharine to be coming from the Evan I know. "My favorite _coward_."

He's talking to another boy, across the room from us. He might classify as a man, even, if his face looked a little older. But he's tall, lean, and blond, and he's wearing all white. He looks at Evan and says, "Evan. Still building toasters for the elderly?"

"Jack," Evan says in that same horrible, sweet voice. "Still turning tricks for gold medals?"

So… that's him. _That's_ Jack Atlas. He certainly looks a lot less menacing than I imagined, especially given all the things Yusei and Evan have said about him. Actually, his expression and the way he dresses makes me think that he's might just be a major brat. Yusei's description of him matches him the best: tall, blonde, extremely punchable face.

Yusei doesn't say anything to him. He barely even gives Jack a glance, and I almost think I see a twinge of irritation in Jack's face. Like he's pissed Yusei won't give him any attention.

Yusei starts off, toward the door between here and the operating room, and I blurt, "Please try to avoid a fight. If by some miracle you can wake her up, I don't want it to come to that, especially not with the condition you're in."

"I'll do my best," he says.

"Be _careful_ ," I blurt, but he's already in the other room with Aki's parents.

"You're a new one."

I swivel my head toward Jack. He's talking to _me_ , now?

"Hm. Thought _you_ were dead," he says. I suppose now, standing next to Evan, the resemblance between us is impossible to miss. And he certainly knows Evan well enough to know that he lost a twin sister.

This person helped break Yusei. Helped break my brother. He put them both through more than any person should have had to go through in less than five years. What is he trying to do, patronize me? Get at me just to get at me, or at Evan, maybe?

Either way, I don't think I want to give him the time of day. Not when I feel this sick, not when I'm worried about Yusei and Aki. I don't have the mental or emotional capacity to play any game with an enemy that isn't even mine.

So I put on my coldest expression, attempt at making it _supremely_ obvious that I'm looking him over from head to toe, and I say, "Don't talk to me."

Evan snorts.

Ruka, a much-needed break for the tension, blurts, "O-Oh!" The claw mark on her arm suddenly lights up. I glance across the room to Jack, who doesn't seem to notice himself glowing; he's busy looking through the window into the viewing room, and when I follow his lead, I see that Aki is sitting up.

It makes me breathe a huge sigh of relief. If Ruka and Jack lit up, I can only assume that Yusei and Aki did, too. Four of five Signers, together… maybe the thing that gave them their marks is a protector. Did it put Aki under out of safety? To protect her life from the two Dark Signers that came after her last night? I can only assume that it allowed her to wake up because all of the other known Signers are near her.

I don't know. All I know is that I'm relieved that she's okay. The only thing that would make this better would be if Yusei is right, and Divine is nowhere near here. But even if I can't sense him, I can't be sure that he's unaffiliated with all of this just yet.

I stand closer to the window, trying to get a better look at her face, to see if I might be able to gauge what's happening. She's craning her neck up to look at Yusei, and I don't feel any change in the air or under the ground… so is everything okay? Have we avoided a fight?

Then I watch her take in the sight of her parents.

Ruka breathes in sharply, and Rua grabs onto her like he's prepared for her to fall. She's feeling what I'm feeling, though—it's as if the floor under us is moving. _Breathing_. It's Aki's power awakening and coursing up underneath us.

She grabs her duel disk from a table beside her bed, next to her shoes, jumps up, and suddenly takes a menacing step in the direction of Yusei and her parents.

 _No, no, no,_ no _,_ is all I can think. Yusei can barely even stand. She's going to hurt him worse. She's going to hurt all of them. She's going to hurt everyone in this hospital.

I bolt from the viewing room, through the door and into the operating theatre; Evan cries out after me.

The urge to avoid a fight overpowers the fear I've had for so long—the fear of facing Aki on a battlefield—and I shove my way through Aki's parents and through Yusei, until the only thing separating three of them from Aki is me.

No, not the urge to _avoid_ a fight. The urge to fight _back_.

Her expression goes through a million different phases in maybe three seconds. " _C_?"

"Hey," I breathe. "Hey, it's me."

She hesitates a little, and her hand slips off of her duel disk. "You're okay?" Her voice sounds soft and hollow.

"Yeah," I say, trying to keep my voice gentle and calm. I want to keep her relaxed enough to explain things, not rile her up and make this a worse situation than it probably already is. "I am okay, weirdly enough. I'm so glad you are, too. I saw Arcadia, I've been really worried about you."

"I thought… something horrible had happened to you! I was afraid… you'd…"

"Hey, I'm okay. I'm still alive," I tell her. "You've been asleep, Aki. They were worried you wouldn't wake up… are you sure you should be standing? Do you feel okay? Are you nauseous or dizzy or anything?"

"You left," she breathes. Ignoring my questions… that's not a good sign. That means seeing me brought up a whole different issue in her. "Without even saying anything. You just… _left_?"

"This isn't about me," I tell her, trying to take a few steps forward. "I'm worried about _you_. Maybe you should sit down and take a second to breathe."

" _You left_!" This time, the floor actually moves. I know I'm not just feeling an incendiary wave of Aki's aura when I see one of the doctors stumble toward a wall. The nurses and practitioners are all trying to get out into the viewing area.

"Hey, _okay_!" I exclaim, putting my hands toward her, palms up. "Calm down, Aki, I need to know if you're—"

"Don't tell me to calm down! You left without even saying goodbye, nobody knew where you went!"

"Please, Aki, I only want to help you! You went through something bad and I'm worried that you're more hurt than you look!"

"I feel just fine!" Her lip curls. I don't know if it's a sneer or if she's trying to stop herself from crying. "I thought you could be dead! Or—or _worse_! And now you're just here because you're _worried about me_?"

That wording—she knows there are things worse than death. Especially in Arcadia. But why is she so upset about it? Did she not want to pick Divine over me?

"You want to make this about me?" I say, trying to keep my voice level. Will the anger subside if she gets it out? Or will it just get worse? It feels like, right now at least, it'll only get worse if I keep urging her to calm down. " _Okay_. I left. What would you have had me do? Did you want me to go up to Divine and tell him I was leaving? Tell him to watch me walk out? How well do you think that would have ended for me?"

"That doesn't even matter anymore! Divine's gone!" She stifles something that almost sounds like a sob. The floor rolls under my feet like I'm standing on waves. "He's _dead_!"

For a second, I can't hear anything. It takes me a moment to realize that I didn't mishear what she said. _Divine is dead_. Divine is dead?

I don't know what I'm expecting of that news, but it certainly isn't the inner silence that I get. It drives all of the worry away for once, for one sweet, wonderful moment, but I don't know whether to be happy, or… or upset. I'm safe, for _once_ , I'm _safe_. But the cynic in me realizes that I'll never get a chance to make him pay for what he put me through. The kidnapping and the self-loathing and the neglect and the… the _torture_. That was what Evan called it when I told him.

"That might be the best news I think I've ever heard," I say. But my voice is hollow. _It doesn't even matter anymore_ , she said. It makes me remember Martha's arms around me. Evan with tears running down his cheeks. Yusei and me in the kitchen in the middle of the night.

 _It doesn't even matter anymore_. Does she really believe that? She knew every second what was happening, but it _doesn't matter anymore_. It doesn't matter that I'm only a little piece of the person I could have been. She can't really think that way, not after what she said about things worse than death. Can she?

"You left me, and he left me… what are you _really_ even doing here?!" Her voice sounds so far away.

"Maybe you'll never understand it," I tell her hoarsely, trying to keep in control, "but I was dying every second I was in Arcadia. I'm not like you, Aki, I can't feel and feel and feel to ignore my problems and my lack of control. I can't play pretend to keep myself busy and happy. If I didn't leave, I was going to suffocate. And if I didn't just vanish, I never would have been able to survive. I don't expect you to understand that. You and I didn't exactly have the same experience there."

"You could have at least said… _something_!"

"Like what? Like _told_ you I was going? Judging by the way you're reacting to me now, something tells me that wouldn't have ended well." My cheeks are burning as I force myself to continue and practically pour my heart out to her in front of all these people. "And I _did_ say something. I told you, no matter what happened, whatever became of either of us, I'd always love you. I'm here because, even if it doesn't matter to you anymore, I love you and I want to help you; let me care about you!"

"You can't leave and then come back and say that! And you certainly can't come back to me with… with _them_!" She remarks.

"Look, I didn't invite your parents to come sit in on whatever this is," I say. "None of us did, they came to us. I'm not telling you what to feel, but maybe you need to give at least _some_ of this a chance!"

"Why do you keep defending common people? Like they've never done anything bad to us? You snuck to the Fortune Cup, C! You saw how those people treated us!"

"Aki, you almost killed people!" I say. "Divine grew you to feel so much, _too_ much, that everything you are has become uncontrollable! The 'training' you've been through is just harnessing more and more emotions to wreak more and more destruction! Did you ever stop to think that, _maybe_ , we're giving common people a _reason_ to be afraid of us? Of course regular people have no right to discriminate—whether it be on the basis of ESP or a mark on your face—but sometimes we give them reasons to hate us! They're afraid of us and instead of showing them that we're capable of kindness we give them something to fear!"

"I don't owe common people any kindness! They've certainly never shown any to me!" Her duel disk lights up. "If you'd rather turn your back on your own kind, then go ahead, but leave me out of it!"

"I don't want to fight you, Aki," I warn.

"If you're not going to leave me alone, then I'm going to make you!" She sets a card down on top of her disk, and I can feel the electricity in the air as it Physicalizes—a flurry of white hot rose petals explodes around her, gyrating toward me in the shape of a typhoon.

She's… _actually_ attacked me. I used to wonder if she ever would. If anything would separate us enough to make her take up arms against me.

Between the fear that my friend wants to hurt me and the fear that I could be what's stopping her from hurting all of these new friends I've made… I raise up my hand and I Waste.

The petals bounce harmlessly off of the air around us, curving upward until they hit ceiling tiles and sear their shapes into the drywall.

Wasting against her feels like I'm going up in flames. She might have little accuracy in the way she destroys things, but her power is _so_ concentrated. Like a kick to the stomach. I can feel it wearing away against me quicker than I think anything ever has, the heat and the fire punching toward me inch by inch until I can feel the hot breath of the whirling petals close to my nose.

Somehow I last. The card effect fades, but the wind still whips around us with a pressure that makes my ears hurt.

"Fine," I mutter, more of a self-motivation than anything else. " _Fine_. Okay." I unclip my wrist dealer to toss off my jacket—and my stabilizer clatters to the floor after it. The cards I have, in the pouch on my belt, go right into the dealer. When the dealer goes back on, my duel disk whirrs to life and flicks through my cards.

There's roaring in my ears, and I can't tell if someone is shouting at me, or if everything in me is just starting to close up and the sound is just blood rushing toward my head. This is happening. _This is happening_.

I reach for the top five cards on my deck; Aki looks surprised, but she doesn't back down.

She's yelling above the wind whipping my ponytail back. "I summon Evil Thorn in Attack Position! Then I activate its special effect, to Tribute it and deal you 300 points in damage!"

A grenade drops off of the side of the monster, and I watch it go up in flames. I throw out my hand and try to Waste to deflect the debris, but I can still feel the heat of the explosion against my face. The ticker on my duel disk displaying my LP beeps down to 3700.

"Because I activated this effect, I can summon two more Evil Thorns from my deck in Attack Position, but for this turn, their abilities are negated!" Two more Evil Thorns grow up out of the tile in front of her. "Next, I activate the Spell, Closed Plant Gate! When I control two Plant-type monsters with the same name, you can't mount an attack!"

A wall of vines closes in around the Evil Thorns on her field. She sets no cards before ending her turn.

In my hand, I have the Trap card Earthshaker, the Monster card Machina Defender, and the Spell cards Shield & Sword, Machina Armored Unit, and 7 Completed. The card that I draw is the Monster card Machina Sniper.

Evil Thorn is only a LV 1 Monster, but since there are two of them, Aki would only have to summon a Tuner and possibly one more monster in order to summon Black Rose Dragon. Which won't be difficult for her.

I flipped through this deck too many times when I was waiting for Yusei to wake up. These were the cards I had before I found myself in Arcadia. I know I can do this. I _know_ I can _do_ this.

"I summon Machina Defender in Defense Position!"

It's a big, bulky blue machine that looks almost like a castle wall. 1200 ATK and 1800 DEF—for now, while I can't attack, it's the best I can do.

"Next, I activate the Equip Spell, 7 Completed! Machina Defender gets a 700-point DEF boost until either card leaves the field!"

Now Machina Defender is at 2600 DEF. The damage is what's on my mind, because it takes 1000 LP for me to attack with this deck's ace. Defender will survive up against Black Rose Dragon now, unless Aki uses an Equip Spell, and most of the ones she has inflict Piercing Damage. The higher my DEF, the better.

"Then I place three cards face down and end my turn!"

I set down Shield & Sword, Earthshaker, and Machina Armored Unit; the first two, just in case I need a boost or I need badly to destroy something. I have Machina Armored Unit to trigger in case I lose Machina Defender right away. In the meantime, I can keep drawing to see if I can get the rest of the materials I need. Right now I only have two out of the four pieces I need to summon an ace.

Aki draws, and I feel my heart beating _way_ faster than it should be beating.

"I summon Twilight Rose Knight in Attack Position!"

I'm bracing myself.

"Due to its special ability, I can Special Summon one LV 2 or lower Plant-type monster from my hand!"

The air feels charged already. I ready myself to Waste away whatever comes at me.

"By tuning Twilight Rose Knight with Dark Verger and both of my Evil Thorns, I can Synchro Summon Black Rose Dragon!"

I hear the very walls creak as the Dragon grows up and against them. The lengths of vines growing beneath its wings whip against the pocket of air I've made around myself; I feel a sensation like I've accidentally skimmed my hand over something unbearably hot.

"I equip my dragon with Thorn of Malice! This card allows me to not only add 600 ATK to Black Rose Dragon, but inflict Piercing Damage! I can't destroy the monster I attack, but I can take off 600 ATK and DEF from it after damage calculation!"

Ah, shit. It's a good thing I have Earthshaker set; if I don't destroy Machina Defender, she'll keep beating against it until it has 0 DEF, and I'll be toast before I even get _close_ to summoning an ace.

"Then, by removing Dark Verger in my Graveyard from play, I can activate Black Rose Dragon's special effect to switch your Machina Defender into Attack Position and change its ATK to 0!"

Black Rose Dragon bites into a shimmering shade of Dark Verger, shattering it. Its vines shoot outward at Machina Defender, wrapping it up and tugging it toward the center of the battlefield.

"I-I activate my facedown, Shield & Sword!" I call. "This turn, I can swap Machina Defender's ATK with its DEF!"

I still take 400 points in damage, and when this turn resolves, I'll have a Machina Defender with 0 ATK, but it's better than if I had taken all 3000 points.

Machina Defender starts to lose pieces of itself; I'm blown back by a flurry of air and flying pieces of metal. I lift my hand to Waste away the vines and the debris whipping toward me. I keep getting pushed back and back and back… I feel my shoes scraping against the floor as the wind moves me.

When the damage resolves and I lower my shield, I can feel blood bubbling down my nose. After Wasting so much without stopping… I've already reached my breaking point.

"I… activate Earthshaker," I pant. "I can declare two Monster attributes, and you choose one of them; whichever you choose, all Monsters of that attribute on the field are destroyed! I'm declaring Earth and Fire!"

"What's the point of this? You just want to destroy your own monster?"

"Yeah, so just _pick_ my attribute, let me get it over with!"

Her expression distorts with confusion—something calculating. Like she's trying to figure out the appeal of me wanting to destroy my own monster. With the number of Effect Monsters and Spells I have, it'll just be easier for me to summon from the Graveyard than risk sacrificing LP.

" _Fine_! I pick Earth!"

Machina Defender shatters; I've never been grateful that I can't Physicalize until now, and the shards of the monster blowing against me feel like nothing.

"Now, I chain my third facedown, Machina Armored Unit! Once per turn, when a Machine-type monster on my field is destroyed, I can Special Summon one Machine-type monster from my deck with less ATK than the one that was destroyed! Appear, Machina Gearframe!"

Because I switched Machina Defender's ATK and DEF… I have anywhere underneath 2600 points to play with. And the ticker on my duel disk says that my LP is still at 3300. I can do this, I can do this.

Aki ends her turn, somber and silent all of a sudden. I wipe my nose; the blood leaves a thick, shiny trail on the back of my hand and a little ways up my sleeve.

"What," I say, "have you never seen someone overexert before?"

"I've never seen you do _anything_ before," she says. "Never duel, never use your powers!"

"I was never _allowed_!" I tell her. She _knows_ all this. She knows why I wasn't allowed to duel. Did she really forget, or is she just ignoring it? "Divine took my cards from me when you came because I wasn't like you. I couldn't make real destruction. I could just stop it sometimes, and obviously, not for a long time!"

Her mouth is a thin line. "The blood?"

That's truly something she's never seen me do before. _Bleed_. "My body isn't… isn't strong enough to sustain my powers. Not anymore. Why do you even care? If you're so intent on me leaving you alone?"

"I… _don't_ ," she sneers.

"Yeah, okay! Sure!"

"Be quiet and take your turn, C!"

"Why are you fighting me? Any of us? What's your argument, even?" I say. "Divine was your only _real_ friend? The only person that _understood_ you?"

"You didn't… _know_ him like I did—"

" _Yes I did_!" My voice cracks, and I crush my hand against my nose to try to stop the blood from coming. "Don't tell me I didn't! I knew him so much better than you _think_ you do!"

"You didn't—"

"I left Arcadia because Divine took me from my family!" I enunciate, my voice half-muffled from my hand over my nose. "I thought he was my father for four years, I loved him and I listened to him just like you did! I used the stupid name he gave me and trusted him when he said going outside would only ever do me harm! And, you know what? After he exhausted that fatherly facade, I got to know him even better! Every question was suddenly an accusation, every step I took out of line was punishable! All this— _blood_ is because of _him_! You look at me and what's happening to me, and you tell me I didn't know Divine! You tell me that the Divine you knew wasn't the monster that I knew!"

"H-He wasn't!" She exclaims. "Not… not the one I knew!"

"You're lying to yourself," I say. The blood's mostly stopped, I can feel it dried up in my nose for the most part, but I'm breathing through my mouth just in case a blood vessel ruptures again. "I lost a little more of you every day, to him. He kept telling you to break everything you saw, and I always wondered if you'd ever have the audacity to break even things you cared about. Even if you don't think you have a place with your family, or with the Signers, I thought _then_ that you might've had a place with _me_ —"

" _Divine_ was my place!"

"Where's the Aki that came creeping into my room in the morning with her arms full of ice because she knew I was in pain? Because she knew what Divine had done to me? The Aki who knew that Divine didn't want me touching cards, who sat with me in a broom closet showing me through her deck because she didn't want me to get in trouble? Where did she go? When did I lose her?"

"I don't know!" She rips her stabilizer from her hair, tossing it onto the floor, and wind shoves me back and almost off of my feet. I put my arms up in front of my face to brace myself against the gale. Her voice is almost inaudible above the wind as she says, "Why would you leave me for… for _them_?"

"I left you," I say, "for _me_."

She pins wide eyes on me as I draw to take my turn. It's a Spell card: Iron Call.

"When I've summoned Machina Gearframe, I can add another Machine-type Monster from my deck to my hand!" It slides out of my wrist dealer, and my deck shuffles. "If I have Machine-type Monsters in my hand or my Graveyard with combined Levels exceeding 8, I can Special Summon Machina Fortress!"

It's three times the size of Machina Defender; gears, wires, metal, and a gun barrel, towering over me and standing almost as large as Black Rose Dragon. 2500 ATK, not as much as Black Rose Dragon, but almost there.

"I equip Machina Gearframe to Machina Fortress!" I say. "In the event Machina Fortress should be destroyed, I sacrifice Machina Gearframe instead! Then I'll end my turn!"

"That's not going to do any harm to me!" Aki draws. "Black Rose Dragon, attack Machina Fortress!"

Black Rose Dragon tangles its vines around Machina Fortress' sturdy outer shell. I throw up my hands to Waste and protect myself from the damage—500 points of it—and the shards of metal dancing outward toward me.

"Due to the effects of Thorn of Malice, Machina Fortress also loses 600 ATK and DEF! I'll end my turn with that!"

I'll keep losing and losing until I'm done for; I have to keep trying for the deck ace. It's a one track strategy, and maybe I should try to be more flexible, but it's all I can think of.

The wind keeps whipping, and I hear shouting behind me as the debris from my weakened Machina Fortress goes slicing over the heads of the people behind me: Aki's parents, Yusei, and my brother, who must've come out to try and get me.

My nose starts bleeding again as I put out a hand to try and deflect the shards of metal away from my friends and Aki's parents. Aki's father is shouting to her—something I can't hear over the roaring in my ears—but it almost seems like it makes things worse. The wind slices past me like shards of ice.

I wipe my nose again and try not to look at the dark streak I leave behind. The card I draw this turn is a Spell card, Day of the Machines.

"I'll begin by unequipping Machina Gearframe from Machina Fortress!" With Thorn of Malice in play, there's no chance that I'll have to worry about Machina Fortress, or any monster of mine, getting destroyed. "Then, I activate Day of the Machines! Every monster on my side of the field with 2000 or less ATK can mount a direct attack before being destroyed!"

It's only Machina Gearframe, but it's also 1800 points in damage. It's me getting somewhere. Aki takes the damage unflinchingly; the only sign that she took any damage at all is from the ticker on my duel disk, now telling me that she has 2200 LP to my 2800.

"Now, because a monster on my field was destroyed, I can reactivate Machina Armored Unit and Special Summon Machina Soldier!"

Another key to my ace, with 1600 ATK and 1500 DEF. The problem will be me having to survive the damage around it; Aki's more than likely to attack it instead of Machina Fortress because of the difference.

"Now I'll end my turn!"

Aki draws her card and sends Black Rose Dragon to attack Machina Soldier, like I thought she would. Blood is still gushing from my nose, so I take my chances and hit the deck. The wind goes over my head, but I can feel the bite of metal as something slices into my shoulder. The ticker on my duel disk reads 1400 LP. I can't lose any more LP if I want to win.

Aki sets a card, and suddenly it's my turn. I'm still on my stomach, on the floor, braced against the wind. I draw the Trap, Damage Polarizer. I have Machina Sniper, Damage Polarizer, and Iron Call in my hand. All I can do for my turn is set Damage Polarizer face down.

"Are you out of options? _Already_?" She calls.

"Why are you patronizing me?" I say. "I'm trying to help you! You won't calm down enough to talk instead of almost killing me!"

"Is that what you think of me?" She snaps.

"I think if you actually _wanted_ to kill someone, you would have done it already!" I exclaim. "Even if you do hurt me, I'm going to keep trying to get through to you! You need to understand that Divine being gone is a good thing! That there are more important things right now than grieving for a _real_ murderer!"

Aki says nothing to that. She begins her turn and sends Black Rose Dragon to attack Machina Soldier again. I brace myself to activate my Trap, when suddenly Aki's father runs out in front of me with his arms spread out wide.

Is he stupid? Or what?

"Aki!" He's shouting above the roaring wind. "Stop this! Please!"

He's definitely going to die if I don't do something. "I activate Damage Polarizer! I can negate the damage I take this turn, and both of us draw a card!"

For the time being, Aki's father is safe from damage, but he's still standing there with his arms outstretched.

The card I draw from the effects of Damage Polarizer is another Spell: Advanced Draw.

Perfect.

I heave myself onto my feet, finally, as Aki's father is begging her to forgive him.

"Please!" He's saying. "I made a mistake, and I've been trying for years to right it! I'll admit that your powers frighten me, but I shouldn't have reacted the way that I did! I shouldn't have treated you that way!"

"Be quiet! You were right to abandon me! You were so sure I was a monster, so that's what I became!"

"I wasn't thinking when I called you that! You're not a monster! Your mother and I love you, and we don't care if you believe it! We just need you to know that it's the truth!"

"Shut up!" She roars. "I activate Doom Petal Countdown! By removing a monster in my Graveyard, I can deal C 300 points in damage!"

Purple petals explode into the air, whipping around toward me and Aki's father. He's not moving. Either he's incredibly dense, or he's just really, _really_ sorry. Maybe both.

To try to protect him, I take a chance and Waste again even though my nosebleed hasn't even come close to stopping. I can feel the petals bouncing off of my shield as if they were cannonballs. The ticker on my duel disk reads 1100 LP.

Something suddenly erupts in the pit of my stomach and I'm on the ground again, blood dribbling out from between my lips. Coughing feels like my chest is on fire, and rose petals whip past my face so fast that I barely even feel them slicing into my skin. I don't know what's happened to Aki's father. I think I hear my brother roaring my name over the sound of the wind.

I think Aki's turn is over. Petals are still whipping everywhere, an effect of her ability to Physicalize… but her hands are pressed over her face.

I spit blood out and draw for my turn; the card is a Spell, Soul Release.

"I activate Advanced Draw!" I croak. Every word makes the fire in my chest flare up. "By Tributing a Monster on my field that's Level 8 or higher, I can draw two cards!"

The cards I draw are a Spell, Cyber Summon Blaster, and a Trap, Nostalgia Lock.

"Because a Machine-type monster was sent to the Grave this turn, I reactivate Machina Armored Unit to bring Commander Covington to the field!"

All the pieces. I have them all. Now, if only I could _breathe_.

Aki's father is walking toward her, now.

"Stay back!" She roars.

"I won't turn a blind eye when you're in pain!" He shouts. "Not again!"

She starts to shake her head.

"Y-You said Divine was your only place!" I manage, blood crawling out from between my lips. "What do you call this? Your father offering you a better place to be? What is _that_ to you?"

She's still shaking her head. I have one, two more things to do, maybe, before I _think_ I can win.

I wobble up onto my feet. "I activate Cyber Summon Blaster! Every time I Special Summon a monster, you take 300 points in damage! Then I'll Normal Summon Machina Sniper in Attack Position!"

Almost there. I can do this. _I can do this_.

"Now, I activate the Spell Card, Iron Call! If I control at least one Machine-type monster, I can Special Summon a LV 4 or lower Machine-type monster from my Graveyard! Return to me, Machina Defender!"

I have all of my pieces, and Aki takes 300 damage from Machina Defender's summon. The ticker on my duel disk tells me that she's at 1900 LP.

The wind, meanwhile, has grown so strong that furniture is beginning to fly around the room. Tool cabinets, the IV drip, and the bed that Aki was in when we arrived here… I'm so weak that I can feel myself swaying with it. Like I'll be blown away, too.

Aki's father is still trying to get to her, calling her name, begging for her to look at him. I don't know what will happen to me if I try to Waste and deflect Aki's physical energy away from him again.

I hear her say something I don't expect: " _I can't stop_!"

Divine always said the duel damage was unstoppable and the collateral was a choice. Even I believed him. But he was wrong about a lot of things. About me. About Aki.

"Aki, this is all _you_!" I shout, my voice splintering. "This wind is you! The destruction is you! You _can_ stop!"

She's shaking her head again, her hair wild in the wind, the furniture swirling around her as if she's the eye of a tornado. My stomach sinks toward my knees when a cabinet suddenly goes flying in the direction of Aki's father, and I'm—I'm all Wasted out. Thanks to Divine, I can't manage anymore without effectively destroying myself.

Her father sees it, but he doesn't move. He's focused on getting Aki's attention rather than saving himself, which is the thing that catches Aki's attention. She begs him to stop, to jump out of the way, and when he doesn't listen and I think I see the cabinet make contact with him, the wind cuts off and the cabinet goes sailing backward into a wall.

Aki falls to her knees and her father follows. They're hugging and crying and he's kissing her head and promising her that he's all right.

"This is over," I say, my voice low and raw, "isn't it?"

"End it," Aki whispers; in the stark, new silence, I can even hear the strain in her voice. " _Please_."

I swallow, but it's a bad idea, because I feel blood slinking down the back of my throat. "By releasing my Machina Defender, Machina Sniper, Machina Soldier, and Commander Covington, I can Special Summon Machina Force to the field!"

It's huge—so much bigger than Machina Fortress, even. It meets Black Rose Dragon warily, sizing up Aki's cold, beautiful red beast with a tank-sized gun barrel swung over its shoulder. The ticker on my duel disk brings Aki down to 1600 LP from Machina Force's Special Summon and the effect of Cyber Summon Blaster.

"By paying 1000 of my LP," I say, "I can attack and destroy Black Rose Dragon."

Machina Force's 4600 ATK overpowers Black Rose Dragon's 3000. The ticker on my duel disk displays the final LP count: me at 100, and Aki at 0. The Solid Vision system flickers out, my duel disk whirrs down into cold silence, and my knees give out.

"Hey. _Hey_." Everything is a little blurry, but I can sort of make out the bridge of Evan's nose as he turns my face toward his. I feel his arm curved around my back to keep me from toppling over. When did he get here? "You're okay. You're gonna be fine. How do you feel? Anything broken? Can you talk to me?"

"Oh my gods," I ramble. "You're so _needy_."

Someone, I think maybe Yusei, coughs something that almost sounds like a laugh. "Impressive, for only having flipped through those cards a few times."

"When do I get to fight _you_?" I retort, looking aimlessly in the direction of his voice. What I think is his face just looks like a blur of brown and black and blue. "I could be the new King maybe."

" _Maybe._ After you stop bleeding out. It's a good thing we're in a hospital."

I try not to laugh—mostly because it hurts.

"Your eyes are reeling, here, can you look at me?" Evan asks. "Try to focus?"

"Stop moving," I say.

"I'm not moving."

"Oh, that's fun." I squeeze my eyes shut for a few seconds, and every time I open them everything starts to clear up a teeny bit. What I wouldn't give for Seria's Naturalism right about now.

"C," a meek voice says. When my eyes have finally started to focus again, there's Aki, on her knees next to me. Her eyes are misty with tears. "I'm so sorry. For… for hurting you and for those things I said and for Divine and for—"

"Hey," I interrupt. "It's okay."

"Why are you forgiving me so easily, I—"

"You know what? Because I want to. Because, like I said, I love you, and nothing's going to change that. We have time to delve deep into both of our debilitating emotional issues later. I've always been afraid of fighting with you, but I just did it and I came out okay, so right now I really think there are worse things that could have gone down between us."

"'Okay'?" Evan snipes. "You're covered in blood."

"Nobody died," I say. "That's a win in my book."

"You have... a relative, I'm guessing?" she murmurs, looking between me and Evan, probably noting the resemblance between us.

"My brother," I say. "He's much less charming than I am, though."

"Excuse you, I'm amazing," Evan retorts.

Aki's face changes to some mix of bewilderment and content. Aki's father, in his torn grey-brown suit, meets her mother to stand beside Aki and bring her toward them in an embrace. All three of them look like they've been crying, and they probably have; seeing Aki standing in between them makes me start to look for where her features came from. She's almost the spitting image of her mother, save for the dimple she has that I suddenly catch sight of on her father.

"I'm glad you're going to be able to patch things up with your parents, Aki," I say.

"I'm glad you found family," she replies. "And I hope that we can learn to adjust together."

"Sounds like a deal to me."

Aki throws a sidelong glance in Yusei's direction. It's not so much cold, but it is very guarded. "...I'm sorry for the Fortune Cup. I caused a lot of trouble there. For those people…" she doesn't look at him. "And you…"

"That's all right, I lived," he replies. "I really did mean what I said to you then, though—we share our marks, and we're all one and the same. I have faith in your power and your ability to overcome things, and I look forward to sometime when, hopefully, we can call each other friends."

"...I can _try_ friends," she says. She glances down toward me. "C, you're still bleeding, can we please get you a doctor before I go get one and drag them here myself?"

"There's the semi-abrasive Aki I know and love," I say. "Somebody help me up, let's go get an expert. And, um, also, Aki… my name isn't C."

"Oh?"

"It's Silvan." I stick out a wobbly hand in her direction. "Nice to finally meet you."

"Okay," she says, an almost-smile growing on her tear stained face as she holds out her hand to help me up. " _Silvan_."


	22. No Good Deed

The doctor makes me follow a light with my eyes. She's a tall, willowy woman with graying dark hair—old enough to be my mother.

"Does this happen often?" She murmurs.

"No," I say softly. "It's happened… once or twice, maybe a couple more times. I've never had it happen this bad. But I've also never used my powers this much in such a small amount of time."

"I've had no direct experience with psychics," she tells me, "at least, not _admitted_ ones. But it's nice to know that not all of you are obsessed with property damage."

"I'm… sorry… about that examination room," I say.

"No one was badly injured, so I suppose it could have been worse. You seem to be… in a state… of…"

"You can say I look messed up," I say. "It's okay."

" _Well_ , you look much better without all of the blood. How do you feel now? On a scale of one to ten?"

"A two I think. Probably."

"You said that when you were brought in here," she exhales. "In that case, do you have _any_ sense of your pain threshold?"

"I know it's really high. If that helps."

"Hm." She clatters around in a drawer in the cabinet by the door and produces a reflex hammer. After she's done tapping it against my knees, she shuts all of her equipment back in the cabinet and says, "Wait here."

I stay rooted, obediently, to the table, my hands folded in my lap. I wonder where we'll all go from here.

My shirt's covered in blood, so I'll have to change it as soon as I get back to Satellite. I think Evan has my jacket, my stabilizer, and my duel disk, so I'll have to get those from him when the doctor lets me out.

I'm still processing that duel. That I _actually_ fought Aki. When was the last time I stepped into the ring with another psychic? When was the last time I stepped into the ring _at all_?

Out of all those times, I don't think I won even once. At least, not against a real person. The simulators were all easy to beat, but they were set up like puzzles. I'm almost positive the only psychic I've dueled besides Aki is Divine.

Or, _was_. I guess. Divine's dead now. That feels strange to say, that _Divine is dead_. I had to forget about it to focus on the duel, but right now it hits me that I could go anywhere in Neo Domino without having to watch my back. If Arcadia still stood, I could go find Seria and Kawasaki. I can keep Aki close to me without worrying about Divine separating us.

Besides the heartrending relief, though, I feel a twinge of spite. Some part of me knows that death was the only way to stop Divine, and yet… I find myself feeling like I've been robbed the opportunity to try to stand up to him for the first and last time.

If I didn't freeze up at the thought of him, at least.

The door swings open, and it makes me jump. The doctor reenters the room, followed by my brother.

"Beyond the obvious, there isn't much more I can do for you," the doctor says. "Can you stand?"

I slip off of the table, and my legs want to wobble; I put all the strength I can into trying not to stumble.

"I'd still like to recommend you take it easy," she continues. "Try not to use your abilities for as long as you can. I have no way to help me predict how long to abstain, so I'm going to suggest a minimum of twenty four hours. Just to be safe. Whatever damage you did to yourself, I think you need plenty of time to repair."

"Thank you," I say.

"Thank _you_ , for trying to end the situation before it became worse." She picks her clipboard up from where it sits on top if the material cabinet by the door, and then slips out again.

Evan holds my stabilizer out to me. "Doing okay? How many fingers am I holding up?"

"I can see fine, my headache's mostly gone," I answer. "And—three. Dumbass."

"I'm just making sure!" He retorts. "I gave your jacket and your duel disk to Aki and Yusei. I got to come in here because they were arguing about who got to check on you first and were kind of on the brink of killing each other."

"Oh, no."

"Yeah, Aki's very possessive of you. I think you mean more to her than you assumed. Are you okay to go outside?"

"I think so." I clip my stabilizer on over my sleeve. "How's everyone else? You punch Jack yet?"

"The twins are worried, too. They seem to like you. And I'm resisting the urge to punch Jack until I know for sure I won't get in trouble with Yusei for it." He opens the door up for me, and I peer out, expecting to see Yusei and Aki at each other's' throats. There's a surprising amount of space between them, like they'd rather not be in danger of brushing elbows.

Yusei stands back, though, and lets Aki get to me first. Her eyes are huge and worried, and she looks like she hasn't stopped crying, but at the very least she's put her stabilizer back in.

"Are you feeling okay?" She asks. "The doctor said she didn't really know how to treat people like us—"

"I'm feeling much better," I tell her. "I just have to be careful about using my powers for a little while. Otherwise, no harm done."

"I'm so, _so_ —"

"You don't have to keep apologizing," I interrupt. "It's okay. _I'm_ okay."

"I want to, though! I still feel bad!"

"You're fine," I urge. "Everything's good. No need to apologize."

"...okay. I'm not going to stop being sorry, though." She thrusts my jacket out toward me, her cheeks noticeably pink. "I-I have your jacket."

"Thank you." I slip it back on over my shoulders; the leather's warm from having Aki's hands on it. "So, what's the plan now? Since everyone is all together?"

"Not really," Yusei exhales, stepping a little closer to us. He and Aki exchange wary looks, presumably, about each other. "We're down Jack. I don't know where he went."

"Not like it matters beyond him being marked," Evan scoffs. "As far as I'm concerned, I think we go home. And Martha locks you in your room for those twelve hours she mentioned this morning?"

Yusei doesn't look very satisfied with that suggestion, but he says, "Maybe some rest will do both of us some good."

"I'm more worried about you than I am about me," I retort.

"You're going back to Satellite?" Aki blurts.

"What else can we do?" I ask.

"I… I don't know."

"Excuse me." A woman in all blue approaches us from the other end of the hallway, followed by a very miffed-looking Jack. I swear I've seen her somewhere before.

"Can we help you?" Yusei asks flatly.

"My name is Mikage Sagiri. I'm an assistant to Director Goodwin. The Director has requested that you all meet with him today concerning events that have conspired over the past few days."

"So two of us have to nearly die before he tells us any sort of truth?" Yusei remarks. "Wonderful."

"Will you be coming, then? Or not?"

"After how in the dark we've been thus far? I'm not sure we have a choice."

"Step lively, then, the Director doesn't like to be kept waiting."

I fall in step with Yusei, who hands my duel disk over to me. Aki hangs onto my arm like it's her lifeline. I think the both of them are much better if I'm standing in between them.

I can sort of understand Yusei's wariness with her; he's a common person who's been on the other side of a psychic's duel disk. Aki, however… I have to wonder what her issue is. Besides being uncomfortable with common people. I wonder what _exactly_ Yusei said to her during the Fortune Cup.

Aki's parents are downstairs in the lobby, and they attempt to stop Mikage's march toward the front door to talk to their daughter. Aki, a little awkwardly, attempts to assure them that we're all going for a meeting with Director Goodwin. She promises to call them once it's done.

Outside, we're met with an incredible presence of Security agents. I've never seen so many officers in my life. They're blocking off the sidewalk from a sea of reporters on all sides of us. I remember when Yusei, the twins, and I were escaping the Fortune Cup, and Himuro mentioned something about reporters. That 'we'd be lucky if we saw Yusei for weeks if reporters caught up to him,' or something. Here, elbow to elbow with my friends and Securities, I think I get what he meant.

I feel caged and claustrophobic; Aki's nails dig into my arm as we make our way through the crowd. Everyone else around me looks just as uncomfortable, just as confused and eager to get away... except for Jack. The way his head's on a swivel almost makes me think that he's looking for somebody.

We finally reach a bunch of Security squad cars, boxed in by Bureau-issued duel runners. I count seven of us, not including Mikage, which means we'll have to split up. Aki is practically stuck to my side, so she and I load into the back of one car with Evan. The twins squeeze into the back of a car with Yusei, and I think Jack is riding alone with Mikage. I feel much better once we're in the car and speeding away from all the people.

"How did they know we were there?" Aki asks.

"It could've been the prominent Senator landing a helicopter on the roof," Evan suggests. "Or somebody called Security on your duel. It might also help if a doctor or a nurse or some passing patient saw Jack Atlas walking around and called their friends. Not factoring in Yusei being the Fortune Cup winner, or you being a finalist, and _also_ being there."

"Right." Aki turns red. "You watched my duel, then?"

"Yep, I wanted to make sure that my best friend didn't get squashed."

"...sorry… about that…"

"'S'okay. Besides, any friend of Silvan's is a friend of mine. And I've heard plenty of nice things about you."

"...Thank you." She shifts, almost a little uncomfortably, to my left. "...Silvan, I don't think you got the chance to tell me how you got out. I-I mean, if you're okay telling me—"

"No, it's okay," I say. "It was Seria and Kawasaki. And, also Yusei. But that day when Divine wouldn't let me leave, when he said he doubled my training hours instead, Seria gave me directions to the Circuit and let me out. I got to watch your first duel, with that guy dressed like a knight, and on my way out, I ran into Yusei; he recognized me, but he didn't get to say much before Divine caught me."

"And… after that? I know you were in the Movement the next day on bed rest..."

"Seria, again. She has a subclass she rarely uses, a really unique one, called Naturalism."

"Oh! I've heard about that one!"

"She used it to help me heal. And, that next day, I went to go see if I could find Yusei and talk to him again. Kawasaki helped me drive out, and when I got to the Circuit and talked more with Yusei, he offered to take me back to Satellite. Divine still thought I was immobile, so Seria and Kawasaki gave me a bunch of supplies and let me out to go meet Yusei the day after."

Aki shakes her head. "No wonder Divine was so upset with Seria. Though I don't think he suspected Kawasaki had helped you, too."

That makes my stomach jump. "He… he didn't hurt her, did he?"

"Not that I know of. There was just a lot of yelling. She denied helping you, but I don't think he believed her one bit. He was _livid_ , when he discovered you'd left."

"I can imagine," I say softly.

"At first, we got back, and I went into your room to check on you. Seria had cleaned your room up, though, and the bed was made. I thought it was strange that everything was all tidy, even though you were supposed to be on bed rest." She frowns. "So I thought maybe you'd snuck out somehow. You'd only ever been gone for a couple of hours when you went outside, so I waited that long to go check again, but your room was empty. That's when I noticed that you had a lot less books on your desk, and I looked under your bed and your inventions were gone… So I told Seria first. I didn't want to risk getting you in trouble if I was overreacting, or something. I figured she might know what to do, but she told Divine straight up that your room was empty."

She—tried to protect me. Even after I was gone, after not _knowing_ I was gone…

Her voice gets very soft as she continues, "I'd never seen him so angry."

"How angry?" I whisper.

"He… he set your room on fire."

I swallow. "He almost found me. Once. Right before I left for Satellite with Yusei. He'd had Movement clerics camped outside of the Bureau Headquarters, and I went there with Yusei to see if we could talk to Goodwin… We had to be taken out of the building down a back service elevator, but I guess he sensed me in the building."

"A-And you got away?" She stammers. "How?"

"I still don't know. Yusei hid me behind him, and I was so scared that I think I just shut down. I kept myself from getting Specified, I think."

"I've never heard of that before," Aki marvels.

"Me neither. But… it just happened. I guess. I'm not one to question miracles."

" _I_ think," Evan chimes, for the first time in the entirety of the conversation, "Divine didn't take all the fight out of you."

"...guess not," I say.

"I remember when he left to go get you," Aki breathes. "We were right in the middle of training. A cleric came down to tell him that they were pretty sure of where you were, and he left right then. He didn't even say a word to me."

Did Divine really ice her out? To come look for me?

"How… How did he die?" I murmur.

"Fell," she whispers. "There was another Dark Signer there, besides the one I fought. I don't know who they were. But they were the one dueling Divine, and I guess he… he lost. He fell right out from the observation deck. I saw it happen."

So Aki _didn't_ fight two Dark Signers at once. Divine fought the other one. It's relieving to know that she didn't have to face off against two of them at once. _Alone_.

"I-I didn't get to continue my duel after that. All I remember was watching him fall, and the building started coming down… next thing I knew, I was waking up in the hospital."

"I'm sorry," I say. "I know how important he was to you."

"He never did one kind thing for you, Silvan, he doesn't deserve your sympathy."

"That doesn't change the fact that he was important to you. Despite what he put me through, he made you feel like you had a home. That's not something a person can just forget."

She doesn't say anything to that.

I spend the rest of the drive thinking about the others who were in the Movement building, Seria and Kawasaki and all of the other clerics and apprentices, wondering if they're okay. _Hoping_ they got out all right.

We rumble over a bridge at some point in the drive, and I peer out the window at the water suddenly on both sides of us. This is the closest I've ever been to the ocean.

The cars pull to a stop behind a big metal gate; a sprawling white house casts a shadow over us as we swing ourselves out of the backseats of the Security cars, and I'm still wondering where we are when Mikage appears again and ushers us forward, toward the big house.

"This is where Goodwin lives," Aki marvels. "My father used to come here for meetings. I've only seen pictures of it."

"Okay. Fine," Evan says. "He can build a bridge from the city to _his_ house, meanwhile it's impossible for him to build a bridge to _ours_?"

Yusei, who's joined us from one of the other cars, laughs a little at that, albeit a little _bitterly_.

Aki, Evan, Yusei, the twins, and I follow a Jack and Mikage up a tall set of stairs and into the house through a glass door. I take in the pretty red carpet, the shiny doors and window panes, the paintings across the walls, the electric lamps, the spatterings of wooden furniture. I wonder how much money it cost to build this place. And, what Evan said about Daedalus Bridge… for what this house cost to build, how many feet of bridge would that have made?

"This way," Mikage says. "The Director's still making preparations for the four of you, but in the meantime, now that Miss Izayoi is awake, we've been hoping to share some information about Arcadia with her."

'Four of you'? Figures Goodwin only wants the Signers here.

"What kind of information?" Aki asks. We step into a room full of more windows, where sunlight seems to be coming in from all sides. A Security in a suit, like the ones who took me to see Goodwin at the Fortune Cup, is setting out files on a table from one of dozens of boxes on the floor. "Have you been investigating Arcadia?"

"They _were_ ," I say. "I have fuzzy memories of them coming in and asking Divine all kinds of questions. I was really young."

"Oh, yes, you're C," Mikage says, accepting a file box from the Security at the table. "Is that right?"

"It's, um… That's what Divine called me, yes. Cipher. My real name's Silvan Levine."

"We had to halt our investigation because Divine cut a deal with Goodwin. He's never specified what it was, but it's in my understanding that it was a mutual 'don't-ask-don't-tell' sort of thing."

"So Divine had dirt on Goodwin, then," Yusei chimes. "Good to know the most powerful political figure in the city did something horrible enough that he'd agree to let a legitimate sociopath continue to kidnap and abuse children."

Aki throws him a look that's both pointed and pained.

Mikage, her voice a little strained, continues, "That matter is above both my Security Clearance and my pay grade. All that matters is that Divine is no longer with us, and we were able to freely reopen our investigation into his activities. All of these files were recovered from his study and testing area during the cleanup effort that began late last night."

The Security flops a couple of huge files on the table. "Here. X0005 Cipher and X0125 Izayoi, Aki."

"Thank you. Look for Levine, Silvan, as well, if you can."

"Those are ours?" Aki breathes.

"All of Divine's information on the two of you, yes," Mikage confirms. "Either he was very consistent with updating his records, or he had a very meticulous record keeper."

"Seria kept the records," I say. "What about her? Do you know anything about Seria Shimizu? Where she is, or anything? She would have been at the Movement, too…"

"I'm fairly certain we detained a Miss Shimizu this morning. She wanted to give a full statement for our investigation. Divine's right hand, am I correct?"

"Yeah," I say. So she's alive. Seria is alive. That makes me feel so much better. If I knew Kawasaki's full name, I would ask about him, too; right now I just have to stay hopeful that his luck was as good as Seria's.

The Security throws a skinny little Pee-Chee folder on the table. "Here. That's all I found under 'Levine'."

I feel the overwhelming urge to dive toward it, but Mikage is standing right in the way. And I don't want to seem too eager even though I'm dying to know what Divine knew about me. The _real_ me.

" _So_ , what did you find?" Evan presses.

"Plenty." Mikage sets down the file box, reaches for a handheld tablet on the other side of the table, and flips it to show a video feed to us.

Yusei, Aki, my brother, and the twins squish up around us to get a good look at whatever she's showing us. Evan tenses up beside me as a child on the screen lights up with electricity.

Aki turns away.

I don't. And it freezes me to the floor, because I can feel almost as if every scar on me is leaking electricity into me. For a second, I think that I'm the child in the video; I try to look at their dark hair to prove to myself that this isn't footage of me. It takes a second for my brain to focus on Evan's hand on my shoulder, his thumb circling my skin, trying to soothe me, reminding me that I'm here and I'm real.

And I'm _out_.

"We have several files on a multitude of children who were abducted and subjected to live testing," Mikage continues.

 _Abducted and subjected to live testing_.

"So what is there? About me?" I blurt. I feel several pairs of eyes turn on me.

"Well… it looks like there's nothing physical in your file except for these," Mikage picks up the file with my real name on it, and it's dismally thin. She reaches into it, then hands me a pair of photographs. I take them with trembling fingers.

They're pretty small, almost wallet-sized; The first one pictures two familiar-looking men that I don't pin until I flip it over and see the writing on the back.

"Yusei," I breathe. "Evan."

Aki moves aside to let Yusei come in next to me.

"April 23, Lab," Yusei reads, no louder than a whisper. "Dr. L and Dr. F."

" _Dad_ ," Evan murmurs.

The men in the photograph are almost spitting images of Evan and Yusei; one of them slight and blond with Evan's shiny metal goggles pushed up onto the crown of his head, and the other tall and dark-haired with Yusei's cobalt eyes.

"Dr. Fudo and Dr. Levine worked together on the Ener-D project," Mikage continues. "The project was designed and overseen by Dr. Fudo. Dr. Levine was his Chief Engineer."

Ener-D. That sounds familiar. I've heard that somewhere before.

"I knew it," Evan says, nudging me. "I _knew_ it was Dad. The sketches, and the duel runner, they were all his."

This is my—my father. My _real_ father. Photographed in the same place as Yusei's. Maybe the three of us were just always meant to be friends.

The second photo makes my breath stick in my throat. It's that same man, my father, photographed with a little dark-haired woman.

The back says, " _Rei and Sören, year 2_." Suddenly Evan looks less like our father. The goggles and the blond hair and the slight angle to his jaw made me categorize him with our father, but… the woman in the photo has our face. Our noses, the shape of our eyes, the curves of our cheeks.

Rei. Our mother.

"Otherwise, Divine had nothing else on Silvan." Mikage frowns. "On C, however…" she reaches for the stuffed file on the table and starts to empty its contents out. There are papers, pictures, words that scramble around in my head when I try to read them… "You're Member X0005. The fifth psychic to ever join the Arcadia Movement. Divine's records state that 'Cipher' was brought into the Arcadia Movement at ten, almost eleven, years old. He falsified numerous documents stating that you were his biological child and was able to transport you from the Satellite District into Neo Domino City. Those documents helped him avoid getting shut down before he struck whatever deal he did with Goodwin."

"What do you mean, 'avoid' it?" Evan retorts. "I thought you said the deal stopped the investigation, now it sounds like you guys _already_ had incriminating evidence."

"Like I said, the details are above my Security Clearance," Mikage states. "The point is, if they found out he had kidnapped and smuggled a Satellite child across the sound, protocol says that they would have had to shut him down immediately, no matter what deals he made. Freeze his assets, contact the seller to void the purchase of the building that became Arcadia, and likely arrest him, among other things."

"Sounds good to me," Evan mutters.

But Goodwin already had that incriminating evidence. He knew my mother. He knew Divine was lying when he tried to pass me off as his daughter. "What else is there?" I say hollowly.

She flicks through a few more papers. "You were twelve when you shortened to 'C' instead of 'Cipher'."

"I-I found out what it meant and didn't like it," I stammer. That's strange, that me wanting to shorten my name was noted. Did he note it? Seria didn't take charge of me until long after I asked to be called 'C'. "It's not like that did anything, Divine still used 'Cipher' anyways."

"What does it mean?" Rua asks.

"Nothing," Yusei says—he sounds almost pained. "It means nothing."

"A blank integer," I say. "A placeholder. _Useless_."

Evan rubs a hand on my shoulder, as if to soothe me.

"There are dental records, allergen details, general likes and dislikes, results of several IQ tests… it looks like he took care of you."

"In the beginning, sure," I say softly. "He gave me everything I asked for. Taught me all kinds of things."

"Looks like he wanted you classically trained," Mikage observes, her eyes skimming over a couple pages from the file. "Fluent in Latin and Sanskrit, _wow_. You play the piano?"

"I… a little," I confess. "I don't… do it anymore."

"He did that to me, too." It's the first time Aki's spoken since we started talking about Divine. "He would have me play the violin until my fingers bled."

"Your education records stop at sixteen," Mikage states.

"He… he stopped teaching me when Aki came," I confess. "That was… that was when he got much more mean."

"'Much _more_ mean'," Evan repeats.

"Your records thin out from there," Mikage says. "There's only… the only thing regularly updated were physical examinations registered by a different admin."

"Seria." I swallow. "She always ran my vitals after Divine shocked me. Just to make sure there was no permanent damage."

" _Shocked_?" Ruka asks in a tiny voice.

"Every time I disobeyed him, he'd drag me down to the testing quadrant and shock me."

It tumbles out of me before I can stop it. Why does it feel so much easier to say it here, in front of all these people I barely know, than it did to get it out for Evan or Yusei in private? But for some reason I look down into Ruka's eyes and I keep talking about it. "Eight electrodes, usually. Arms and legs. Once when he was in a particularly bad mood, he added two on both sides of my head. I was out for five days. Seria told me that I could have died. He didn't do it again after that, I guess because of the damage. But sometimes when it's really quiet I can still hear ringing."

There's silence.

"It's better than before that," I say. It feels like a bad attempt to lessen the severity of what I said before this. "I've been lashed, locked in a closet, made to let him look through every single thing in my room… Once when he found I'd started making things, he made me break them and throw them away myself. That, at least, stopped when Aki came. I must've been a disobedient child, but I can't exactly remember every detail. Even recently, he'd only hurt me if I warranted it. If I disobeyed him. I only had to do something to deserve it."

"Nobody deserves that," Yusei says. "I don't care what they did."

"If he wasn't already dead," Evan states between his teeth, "I would kill him myself."

Their reactions bring me back to reality, and to the heavy feeling in my chest. Maybe _that's_ it. Now that Divine is gone, now that he can't punish me for telling anybody… I can let it out? I don't know. Now that I feel slightly more aware of myself and my unnecessary truths, I start to feel nauseous.

I swallow what tastes like bile. "Is there anything else?"

"Not on you personally. We'll have to take a look and let you know," Mikage says softly. My confessions seem to have taken the edge off of her tone. "On the Movement as a whole, though…" she looks toward Aki, who looks like she's forced herself not to exhibit a reaction. "A large number of Movement members were indoctrinated as children. Divine's records reflect members of Arcadia as well as missing persons from up to five years into C's membership. The video is enough proof of it: children were kidnapped, tested, and picked due to their heightened abilities. Usually, they appeared to have been subjected to some sort of memory implant if they weren't easily manipulated. And, if they weren't deemed worthy, they were terminated."

The words _memory implant_ dance around in my head, but they get kicked under a rug by the bigger, more important word. _Terminated_.

Were the punishments to terminate me, too? Was I not worthy anymore? But... if that was true, why would Divine go through so much to bring me back after I left?

"Divine planned on refining these children in a way that would allow them to use their abilities outside of duels so that he could use them as a sort of army in war-torn areas of the world." She flips the chart over. "Aki, Silvan… those appear to have been his intentions for both of you."

Aki makes this… horrible, choked-up sort of noise and bolts out of the room, hiding her face the whole way. It sounded almost breathless, like she'd been holding it back for a while.

Yusei heaves a sigh. "Should I try to talk to her? Or is that a bad idea?"

"No," I croak; I shove the photographs Mikage gave to me into the breast pocket of my overalls. "No, let me do it."

I almost expect a protest, but Evan releases my shoulder. Yusei steps to the side to let me pass.

The silence persists as I exit into the next room, where Aki has collapsed into a chair by the window and hidden her face in her hands.

I pull out a chair beside her and sit there for a moment, listening to her chest cracking with sobs, trying to figure out what to say. The little table we're at is pretty and made of smooth wood.

After a while, I end up murmuring, "Are you all right?"

"What kind of question is that?" She snaps. She's still covering her eyes. "I'm so stupid! I trusted Divine! I loved him like he was my friend, my _family_ , even! I did everything he asked, thinking that I could just ignore the things that were happening around me... as long as I loved him and he loved me, I would be okay, just me, and nothing else would matter!"

"That's... it's a defense mechanism, Aki. Don't blame yourself for that—"

"I stayed _silent_ ," she interrupts, "obedient, and small for him while he killed children left and right for not being good enough for him! I let him turn me into this… unfeeling _thing_! I stood by, I _knew_ , when he turned you into a lightning rod for just wanting to go outside! I thought that if I didn't pay attention, none of it would be real…"

"Aki—"

"The entire Movement was crumbling, built on the backs of dead people, and I only cared about myself and the way he made me feel! And it was all a lie anyways!" Her chest hiccups with sobs again, but there's no sound. Like she doesn't want me to hear her crying. "I let him do all of those things to you and to all of those children… I only cared about myself, and I was horrible to you when you were making an effort to save yourself… you've only ever had faith in me, and I should have helped you, I should have said something, but I didn't…"

I swallow. "Aki, it's okay."

"No, it isn't!"

"Everything that's happened to me," I say softly, "doesn't invalidate what happened to you."

" _What_?" She asks, practically through her teeth.

"It isn't a contest," I continue. "You and I both suffered. all of those children Divine hurt suffered. Seria and Kawasaki suffered. Just because I went through the wringer doesn't mean you didn't, too."

"This isn't about me! The fact that I went through something while you did is entirely separate from what was happening to you! That's not an excuse, I practically abandoned you, Silvan!"

"It isn't your fault Divine secluded me," I say. "He did it from the beginning. He secluded you, too, and he made you think that the only person you could ever be able to trust was him, not even yourself. He messed us all up, and that's not your fault. None of it is, none of it ever was. That's all on Divine. And, you know what? We're going to fix it— _ourselves_. Maybe it'll take a long time but—but we know _better_ now, okay? And now we have more than just ourselves."

"I should have helped you," she repeats.

"You had enough to deal with," I say. "We both know more of the truth and all we can do from this point forward is try to pull ourselves back up onto our feet."

"How can you be so calm-minded about this?" Aki remarks. "He… he _kidnapped_ you! He manipulated me, he abused you—"

"It's over," I blurt. "I'm free. Aki, I might not know who I am, but I have more of it now than I ever did. I'm not a Cipher anymore. I will keep looking for who I am because I can now, and I'll keep looking for a bright side for the same reason I kept going outside even when Divine tried to shock the intention out of me: _because I can_."

"I appreciate what you're saying," she states, "but it doesn't change the fact that I had… I had _something_ , some sort of chance to help, and I didn't use it."

"Don't give yourself agency you never had. Divine had you in the palm of his hand, he wouldn't have let you do anything even if you wanted to."

"I should have—"

"Everyone who defied him ended up dead, Aki." I lean over the table toward her. "He used us all. And dwelling on it means that he wins; he gets our lives, he makes sure that we never leave him behind. Don't focus on what happened to me, this involves both of us. What I'm trying to say is that it doesn't matter who suffered more, or whether or not you think you could have helped. This is about us now, and what we're going to do with ourselves now that Divine is done ripping us up. If you and I let Divine tear us apart, we'll never be anything but pieces. I'll never be anything but Cipher. And I don't wanna be that anymore."

"You're so…" she clenches her fists so tightly against her eyes that her fingers shake. "Why are _you_ the calm one? Why are _you_ the one who gets to try to justify all of this and move us on?"

"I don't get to decide what you do," I say. "But I do get a say in what _I_ do. Divine is… is _dead_ , and I'll admit that feel borderline hollow because some psychopath took me from my friends and family and tried to turn me into someone else, messed me up so badly that there are some things I just can't—can't do. I don't get to take revenge on a corpse, I don't get any justice for what happened to me. But if I let it keep fucking me over, I'm not going to get any closure, either. I'm not going to get to know myself or all of my friends again. I won't let a dead man win, Aki. I won't."

She's crying again. She leans sideways across the table onto my arm.

"It's going to take a long time," I admit, "but we can get through this. If we stick together and take it slow, we can get through it. Okay?"

"You were a better friend to me, Silvan," she whispers, her voice low and shaky, "than I ever was to you."

I scoot closer to her, my chair dragging loudly over the floor, and put my arm gently around her shoulder. After a second, she lies her head down against me.

This is the first real moment of peace I've had with Aki. Every second beforehand in Arcadia was a fallacy; Arcadia, itself, was a fallacy. Maybe now, we'll get to see each other with open eyes.

"I don't trust any of those people," she whispers against my collarbone. "Just you."

"That's okay," I say softly. "We don't really know them."

"You seem to trust them. Ruka and Rua, Evan." She sneers a little when she says, " _Yusei_."

"Evan is my brother," I answer. "Rua and Ruka are children, and they don't deserve to be part of this, but they are. And Yusei's the reason I am where I am anyways. We've… we've already been through a lot together. More than most people go through in one week. You don't have to trust them right away."

"Good, I don't. I trust Goodwin and whatever he's planning on telling us even _less_."

"I don't trust Goodwin either. But I think you should try to take it with an open mind."

"Why?" She snaps.

"Everything you know about your mark, you know from Divine," I say patiently. "And I'm not saying everything he said was wrong, but we don't know it's true, either. Maybe Goodwin knows more. Maybe he doesn't."

"Take it as I go and decide later," she breathes. " _Fine_."

"You're going to be okay," I say. "I'm not going to go anywhere this time. Now that there's no Divine, we stick together."

"Good. You're the only family I want right now."

"Not even your parents?"

"I love my parents, Silvan, and I have since I ran away from home," she states. "But I didn't love the way they treated me. Maybe they'll remedy that, I don't know. I still love them, but I can't say I remember how to trust them."

"...I understand."

"What you said, in the car," she says, pausing a second to swallow the remnants of tears, "about Divine making me feel like I had a home? I still think he doesn't deserve your sympathy. And—and now I know that he doesn't deserve mine, either. I thought that the way he treated me meant I was special. Even if I had this sinking feeling that he was a bad person, somewhere under that guise of my mentor… He didn't treat me badly, and I thought that made me unique. Because of that, I let him use me. I saw what was happening to you and I obeyed because—because I was scared of it happening to me, too. And I'm sorry for that."

"I… I already told you I didn't want you to apologize."

"Let me have this," she demands. "I'm sorry for being naïve. I'm sorry for not trying to help you more because I was scared of being punished. I'm sorry for hurting you, and yelling at you, and I'm sorry if you ever thought that Divine was more important to me than you are. Divine may have played my father and my friend and my master, but he was never like you. He never really cared about me. He just cared about my power."

"I… I'm sorry for not trusting you enough to tell you I was leaving."

"You left to survive," she says. "And that's nothing to be sorry for."

"What lovely friends the two of you make."

I feel the spike in the air as Aki's powers wake up for a second; I don't know if it's because she was startled, or because she's on edge, or she's angry that someone was eavesdropping… We look up to find Director Goodwin watching us, head cocked like a curious, watching animal.

"Wonderful to see you again, C," he says. "You're looking much better."

"It's Silvan, now, Mr. Goodwin," I say.

"Congratulations, then. I trust you and your friends had a safe trip here."

"You have a lovely home," is all I say.

"Thank you."

Aki, warily, asks, "Sir, why did you bring us here?"

"To explain things to you, Miss Izayoi. I understand you and Mr. Fudo were recently faced with you own very difficult, very dangerous situations. I think it may be about time for me to disclose the nature of your blessings to you." He extends an immaculate white-gloved hand toward her. "As soon as the other three Signers join us from the other room, I will take you to where everything can become clear."

Aki watches him warily. As if waiting to see what his intentions are.

"...I brought my brother with me, Mr. Goodwin," I say softly. Maybe politeness, this time, will yield better results than the last time we met. "May I be allowed to ask what you can tell us about our parents?"

His shoulders move as he breathes out a sigh. "If time should allow it, I would be happy to speak to you and Evan."

"You... You know our names."

"To be perfectly blunt, Miss Levine, I was there to witness your birth." He nods his head toward Aki. "Miss Izayoi, the other Signers?"

Aki stands up and tugs on my arm, asking me to go with her. I'm reeling from that statement. _I was there to witness your birth_.

Together, both rattled, we return to call on Yusei, Jack, and Ruka and send them in Goodwin's direction.


	23. Cynical Things

Yusei, Aki, Rua, Ruka, and Jack are ushered off with Goodwin alone. It's a test for Ruka to get Goodwin to let Rua come with her, so Evan and I stay behind to make things easier for everyone. Besides, I doubt the others will keep the details from us for long.

To pass the time, Mikage lets us outside into the garden back behind the house. It looks much less like a garden and more like a park, with hills curving up all over the place and trees and flowers of all shapes and sizes growing behind little fences. Evan and I take a walk together and listen to the silence for a while.

"It was so easy," he says, "for you to tell everybody else. Why?"

"I-I don't know," I answer. I know he's talking about earlier, when I spilled what Divine used to do to me to a room full of people I barely know.

"Do you feel safer, now that he's dead? Is that it?"

"Maybe," I say. "Ruka asked, and I just couldn't shut up. I guess. I just… I just know that I was never allowed to talk about it explicitly. I told Aki it had happened to me the first time it ever happened, and I got in a lot of trouble. So I never explicitly said "Divine" and "electrocuted" and "me" in the same sentence _ever_." Even now, saying them makes my stomach start to hurt. I take a couple seconds to breathe, to try to make the feeling go away. "...it's still scary to admit. I-I don't know. It sounds strange, but I want to see his body. Not up close, like I could touch it or anything, maybe behind some glass, but…"

"You want to make sure he's really dead."

"...yeah," I murmur.

"...I wonder why he had those photographs," Evan says. "Do you still have them?"

I slip them out of my pocket and hand them over. Evan stares at them for a long time, turning them over again and again to read the messy words scribbled on the backs of them.

"This one is bent a little," he observes, turning the one of our parents back over. "Right in between Mom and Dad, it's not enough to be creased, but somebody definitely bent it right down the middle."

"To store it, probably," I say.

"Odd way to store an eight-by-five photograph. This would fit in an envelope. And it's bent backwards, that wouldn't even protect the photo." He traces his finger along the faint line where the picture was bent backwards in half. "The other one isn't bent at all. That's odd."

"I think you're overthinking things," I say. "You just want to know more about them."

"What, you don't?"

"Of course I do. But I doubt Divine had anything to do with either of them. I think he found a kid to kidnap and tried to scavenge up whatever he could about them to make things easier. Mikage said I wasn't the only one taken."

"I just think it's weird." Evan shakes his head. "Why didn't he take me, too?"

"Maybe he just didn't know you existed."

Evan frowns. He doesn't seem convinced.

"Goodwin said he'd talk to us," I tell him. "After he was done with the Signers… he knows things about our mom and dad."

"I don't trust that prick. I doubt he'll keep his promise."

"I want to be hopeful," I say. "He told me he was there when we were born."

"Oh? If he's feeling generous maybe he'll give some proof to back himself up." Evan scoffs. "Whatever. He's such an opportunist. And I blame him for Yusei getting hurt, anyways."

"I… I do too," I admit. "When Goodwin sent us back, he mentioned the Dark Signers, but he didn't mention the Immortals. Or the Nazca Lines. He just said the Dark Signers were their counterparts, and that the Signers were supposed to fight them."

"Hopefully he drops a full disclosure," Evan says. "Yusei still isn't anywhere _near_ healed, and I don't want him to get worse."

"Me neither," I sigh. After a second, I blurt, "Hey, I have a question."

"Mmhm?"

"Do you and Yusei, like… _like_ each other?"

He rolls his eyes. "I knew you'd ask about that eventually."

"What? I just—you guys seem pretty close, so I was just _wondering_ —"

"If it answers your question, at some point, _yeah_ , we were kind-of sort-of… together? I don't know. It didn't last a long time. We were dumb and fourteen, and it was before I hit it off with Kiryu. We make pretty sound friends, but we butt heads too often to ever make suitable boyfriends. I think it was a little less than a month before we both decided that it wouldn't be a good idea to stay together. Besides, it was one of those things along the lines of 'I think you're pretty great and I'd date you if you asked, but if you don't want to do that, I'm also cool staying friends'. There were no hard feelings, but it was a weird month." There's a pause before my brother says, "He's not a bad kisser, though."

" _Eew_ ," I tease, poking him in the side.

"Yes, please be _literally_ twelve years old and tease me about my old flames, I'd like nothing less."

" _Okay_ ," I retort. "Was he miffed when you were interested in Kiryu?"

"Yes, but only because he _kind_ _of_ had a thing for Kiryu, too," Evan admits. "The thing about Yusei, though, is that he's really indecisive and he tends to ignore important things without intending to. And, when he was younger, he had a really one-track mind and a _boatload_ of infatuations. I mean, he still has a one-track mind, but I think he sort of swore off having those sorts of feelings for anybody after we all went our separate ways. Near the end, though, he was really supportive of us. I think he just wanted me to be happy."

"That's nice," I say. "I'm glad you're still good friends."

"Me too. I hope he finds someone great someday that teaches him patience, because that's the one thing he needs more than anything. Or maybe he'll just learn to finally like himself. Or both. Who knows." He inclines his head toward me. "So, I guess I get to ask the big question now, too. What's the deal with you and Aki?"

Heat blisters upward into my cheeks. "O-Oh. I… Nothing. There's nothing going on."

"You lie like a fucking rug, Silvan."

"N-No, I really mean there's nothing going on," I protest. "As far as I know, we're just friends."

"Do you _want_ to be just friends?"

"I-I don't know! She's all pretty and nice to me and I don't know what I want, especially after both of us just got out of Arcadia!" I swallow and lower my voice a little to say, "I sort of think she had a baby crush on Divine. But I don't think she ever really wanted to do anything about it. She just wanted to be able to say that she loved somebody. I mean, I tell her I love her all the time, but it's… it feels like more of an 'I really care about you' I love you. I can't even say that I actually know what anything like that, anything _romantic_ , even feels like. I don't want to mess with her feelings after she just got them royally messed with, especially since I don't even know how _I_ feel."

"That's fair."

"I'm just… bad at feeling stuff. Emotions aren't an area of my expertise."

"Runs in the family," he says. "It's hard to feel certain stuff again if you've conditioned yourself to stop. But I think, if you do find yourself ever recognizing a feeling like that for Aki, you should take a chance. She seems to be really fond of you, and I think you could be good together."

"I-I'll let you know if I do," I reply. "You're much better at this stuff than I am."

"The bar is low," he laughs.

I stare down at the grass as we trudge through it. "...what would you do if you saw Kiryu again?"

"What would I do? _Gods_ , Silvan, I didn't know this was honesty hour."

"Y-You don't have to answer if you don't want, I just… it sounds like we're definitely going to run into him soon. I wanted to make sure you were okay with that."

"I know," he exhales. "I don't know what I would do. To be honest, I don't know whether or not I would kiss him or kill him. He's put all of the people I care about through a lot of trouble, pre-Dark Signer bullshit included. But he meant a lot to me, so I can't help but hope that we might be able to make amends."

"I don't know the Kiryu that I saw dueling Yusei," I tell him, "but I think if you meant as much to him as he did to you, he would do something to show it."

Evan heaves a big sigh. "Kiryu was a very showy guy."

"I wish I could've been there back then," I say. "You all… I bet you would've been a sight to see."

"Oh, yeah," my brother scoffs. "A showman, an egot, a petty thief, and two mechanics together in the same room? _Love_ to do that again."

"I appreciate your sarcasm," I retort. "But I would've liked to see you actually _happy_."

He wrangles an arm around me. "Don't worry about that—I have you back now, that's part of the equation."

I lean into his shoulder. "Thanks."

On our walk, we find all sorts of little groves of trees, a rose garden, and a pretty gazebo surrounded by vines. I don't know if this house was here before, and it's been owned by previous Bureau Directors, or if Goodwin had it built… but it's big and intricate. I think I could get lost in this gigantic excuse for a backyard for hours.

Evan and I ramble to each other, playing some variant of twenty questions while trying to keep our balance on a waist-high brick wall, a forever later, when a black-suited Security finds us and insists upon escorting us to Goodwin.

Evan doesn't think Goodwin has any intention of telling us anything about our parents. I, however, am hopeful. And I'm going to try to be polite as possible this time, since I am in Goodwin's house, Evan's more likely to be the feckless one, and Yeager threatened to take me to the Detention Center last time.

The Security takes us back into the house and down the hall the opposite direction from where we were with Mikage before. After winding through some more rooms, a couple corridors, and another big door, we find ourselves in a big office with a long window along the back.

"You sure have a thing for windows," Evan voices.

Goodwin, from behind his desk, says, "I find that keeping my home well lit by daylight lessens the need for light fixtures."

"Right. House this size must have astronomical electricity bills."

Goodwin laughs.

"...this… is really weird," I say.

"Yes, I would imagine engaging in small talk with the likes of me would be very strange. I am not quite popular with citizens of Satellite."

"For obvious reasons," Evan says. "You have the power to free hundreds of stranded people. You must know that."

"Yes. I've been aware since I became the Director of the Bureau. Though you may not understand my reasons, I have kept the two separate in preparation for right now."

"What do you mean?"

"You mentioned something about the Dark Signers coming to Neo Domino to Yusei, the first time you sent us back," I say.

"Do you recall what I said about Ener-D?"

"I… I think so," I say.

"I will begin by saying that the separation of the Satellite sector from Neo Domino was not caused by a tsunami, or an earthquake."

"I knew it!" Evan blurts. "The damage never looked like quake damage to me, it looked more like—"

"A nuclear explosion, to be frank," Goodwin interjects. "About seventeen years ago, a very prominent physicist named Dr. Hakase Fudo was enlisted to complete a project called The Ener-D Initiative. The goal was to create an engine system that would provide a clean energy source to power all of Neo Domino. Dr. Fudo was chosen to spearhead the project after he published his thesis detailing the _yuusei ryushi_ : his own discovery, the planetary particle, which, consequently, is the key to the energy that first allowed duel runners to function."

Dr. Fudo. Yusei's father. Is his namesake his father's discovery?

"Dr. Fudo assembled a team of engineers, physicists, and doctors to help him troubleshoot and realize the project, among which were his wife, Dr. Eri Fudo, and your mother and father: Dr. Sören Levine and Dr. Rei Hamada."

"But—you said it blew up," I murmur. "So… our parents died _then_?"

"The project was never realized, yes, because the energy in the engine overloaded and burst. The blast was what separated Satellite from the mainland, and in turn, it woke the spirits of the Dark Signers Yusei and Aki fought. To answer your initial question, that is why I have not taken action to connect our two cultures. I feared it would bring the Dark Signers here from the place they had already made their home."

"But they already got here," I protest. "Two of them were in Arcadia."

"Though that may be, the final battle will take place in Satellite. Dr. Fudo knew the legends of the Dark Signers, as I do, and he knew the risk of attempting to cage so much energy. He had your father build fail-safes into his system: five remote towers that, when shut down, will effectively close off where in Satellite the Dark Signers are hiding out."

"...do the others know about this?"

"I had hoped to explain it to them," Goodwin answers. "However, the majority of your friends are having difficulty motivating themselves. I told them as much as I knew about their lore, about what is expected of them, and I am not sure they are convinced that the sacrifices they will have to make are worth it."

" _Sacrifices_ ," Evan repeats. "What do you mean, 'sacrifices'?"

"The Dark Signers are… cunning. Rather, their patrons are well attuned to human weakness and emotion, and they have specifically latched onto people of importance."

"So, wait," I say. "They're not fighting people. They're fighting spirits? Or something?"

"The monsters Yusei and Aki faced, the Earthbound Immortals, are the true enemies in this battle. Their spirits were locked into the earth over five thousand years ago as the Nazca Lines, and now that they are free, they can only manifest the way that the Crimson Dragon manifests: by imparting themselves upon a person."

"So Kiryu isn't evil, then?" I say, turning to Evan. "He's just been possessed by the spirit trapped in The Man Line."

"It isn't that simple." Goodwin shakes his head. "Those who bear the marks of the Immortals paid the ultimate price in exchange for their dark powers and their abilities to summon their patrons. The only reason they walk the earth is because they possess some intense, dark need to complete something unfinished from their previous life."

"I don't… get it," I say. "They're possessed, but only conditionally?"

"They're dead." Evan, beside me, sounds like his soul has left his body. "They're dead men walking."

"Men and women, yes, dead and resurrected to reap revenge upon the Signers. Each one of them bears a grudge against one of the five. That is the only thing keeping them alive. Only defeating them in a duel will free them from the influence of the Earthbound Immortals. "

"That's the sacrifice they have to make, then. They lose the duel, they lose their mark, they lose their life."

"I recognize the aversion to killing someone who may have been a friend," Goodwin says, "however, these people are already dead. And, if they are not stopped, many more will die because of them."

Evan still sounds choked up when he says, " _Thanks_ ," and bolts out the door.

I stand there, rooted to my spot, more out of shock than anything else. I want to go after my brother, but Goodwin says, "You're both very much like your mother."

"Why did you tell us all of that?" I ask hollowly.

"The others were bound to tell you anyways, whether or not I decided to beat them to the punch. Our curiosities have always intertwined, anyways."

"You promised to address my _curiosities_ about my _parents_. Who were they?" I ask, thinking of the duel runner and the books and the drawings back home. "Can you tell me that? _Please_?"

"Sören was an engineer and an architect. He was one of Dr. Fudo's closest colleagues, and so perfectionistic that he believed most of his creations to never even be adequate. Rei was a neurosurgeon, and by far one of the most brilliant people I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. She was, like you and your brother, a psychic."

I swallow. "And what you said before? About being there when we were born?"

"You were born here, in Neo Domino. Your brother came first, you a minute and a half after. Rei named your brother hoping that he would grow up to be a warrior, and Sören named you after the woods far north of Neo Domino that he once called home. Your parents had very many friends who came to see the two of you on your birthday, and I had the privilege of being one of those friends." He stands. "That is about all I have to tell you, Silvan. The question I asked when we met at the Fortune Cup still remains: would you fight to save your city?"

"I-I would fight to save my friends."

"Then perhaps it is _your_ destiny to make them realize _theirs_. I suggest you go find them."

"...thank you, for the stuff about my parents," I say on my way out the door.

He doesn't reply.

I don't doubt that he knows more than he told me. There must be a reason he waited until now to be cooperative about giving some semblance of truth, but I don't think this is the optimal time to keep pressing for information. I doubt it would end any differently than our meeting at the Fortune Cup.

Besides, I'm worried about Evan and how quickly he ran out. Without even getting further information about our parents.

It was talking about Kiryu, no doubt, that made him leave. If the Dark Signers are dead and resurrected, that means that Kiryu is already gone. For how long, I don't know. But it means that my brother is sure that he's lost somebody he cares about now.

I jog back outside, into the courtyard, and start to search for my brother. I have no idea what he's feeling, or where he's gone, but I need to be there for him as much as I can. For all that time I was missing, I have to be there for him every time it matters, even if it only matters a little.

I twist my way through the rose garden; my brother shouldn't be difficult to find, he's white blond, his goggles are reflective, and he's the tallest person I know. I round a corner and almost barrel straight into Aki, who's leaning over a gate and looking at a puffy rose bush cut like a little topiary tree.

"Where's the fire?" She asks.

"Have you seen my brother?" I say.

"No. Not since before we went with Goodwin." Her nose crinkles as she frowns. "Is he okay? What happened?"

"We talked to Goodwin," I explain, "and we were supposed to be talking about our parents, but Goodwin told us more about the Dark Signers and I don't think it went over well with Evan. He just ran out, and I don't know where he went."

"Let me help you look for him," she offers. "It was about that other Dark Signer, wasn't it?"

"H-How did you guess that?" I stammer.

"Yusei is upset about him, too. They were all friends, or something, right? That's what Jack and Goodwin said."

"I… I guess." I won't detail Evan's feelings. That's his story to tell. "But Goodwin told us about how they're already dead. And you all have to beat them to save the city, but beating them means killing them again."

"I suppose I can understand it being difficult to kill your friend," Aki admits. "...if _you_ were a Dark Signer, I know I would get it."

Boy, what an image. "Even so, they're already goners if they're already dead," I say. "What choice do you have?"

Aki shakes her head. "We can't tell them how to feel about it, though."

"I know," I sigh. "...Goodwin said that they would all be close to you. The Dark Signers?"

"I don't know. I didn't know the one I fought." Aki runs her hand along the gate stiles as we pass back through the garden. "Her name was Misty. I'm almost certain she's a fashion model, or—or I guess she was. But she blames me for the death of her little brother. Thinks that I killed him."

"What?" I say. "But… But you've never killed anyone! I _know_ you haven't!"

"During our duel, she said that he was a psychic. That he saw me duel in Daimon, and he wanted to be like me. So he tried to join Arcadia."

I swallow. "...do you think Divine was responsible for whatever happened to him?"

"After what Mikage showed us, I don't doubt it." She sounds almost choked up. "I-I've never met her, I swear I never met anyone who wanted to join Arcadia in Daimon, and I certainly didn't kill anybody…"

"It's okay, you don't have to keep talking about it." I put my hand on her shoulder. "After today, I think we should maybe try not to talk about Arcadia for a little while."

"Okay," she murmurs.

She curls her arm through mine; we walk together back out of the garden, trying to retrace the steps of the walk Evan and I took earlier. The trees and the little walls separating the grass from some of the plants. On the hill that slopes up toward the gazebo, I see the shapes of people that look like they're diving into the grass. Or are they falling?

As we get closer, I see Jack's spiky blond hair and pristine white clothes, and Yusei, who's a little dark spot in comparison. As we get closer, I'm questioning what the heck is happening and why they're practically on the ground.

They're... fighting?

"What the _hell_ ," Aki exhales when we get close enough to realize what's going on. Jack's significantly taller, Yusei's barely three days out from being seriously injured... and Jack's trying to hit him in the stomach?

Aki, although she hasn't shown anything besides brief sparkles of contempt for Yusei, seems genuinely concerned. Borderline upset. "What are you _doing_?!"

Her shouting makes Yusei turn his attention away from Jack, but Jack lands another hit on him, and I can physically see the breath leave Yusei as the punch lands.

I'm remembering him bloody and curled up on the ground, covered in bandages and barely able to eat anything, asleep for two days, and me, staying up all night because I was so worried that I tried to fix Yusei's entire duel runner for him. Even more, I'm remembering Yusei and Evan both talking about Jack and what he's done to them, the things he's made them feel, the way that their lives will never be the same. Here he is, at long last, the pristine and snobby boy I laid eyes on at the hospital finally proving those stories right.

So I panic. Out of anger or concern or something, I don't know. And I Waste Jack.

It's the first time I've ever Wasted a person, and there's definitely a weight difference between him and the little inanimate objects I'm used to Wasting. Nevertheless, Jack's not too far off the ground—just a few inches out of reach of the grass—and Yusei heaves himself up off of his back before turning his eyes on me. He and Aki wear similar expressions of surprise, and Aki has her hand over her mouth. Like neither of them can believe that this is the way I've picked to react to the situation.

Actually? I feel kind of surprised at myself, too. But this is the only thing I could think to do.

"Put me down!" Jack roars, but even his arms and legs are stuck in place. "What the _fuck_ do you think you're doing?!"

" _Silvan_ ," Yusei warns.

"She isn't hurting him," Aki says sharply.

"When I put you down," I say, picking my words carefully, "you're going to do us all a favor and get a reality check. All right?"

"What the _hell_ are you talking about? What's _wrong_ with you?!"

"Never mind that Yusei almost died three days ago," I tell him. "Fighting isn't going to solve whatever issues you have."

" _Put me down_!"

"Hey, how about you shut up and listen to me instead?" I retort. "I don't know you, all right? But I've heard a hell of a lot about you! You've gotten to where you are now only through lying, cheating, and stealing, is that right? And if you have as much talent as a duelist that you claim to have, all of that dishonesty really overshadows it! Did you ever think, for a second, that you're involved with people who are willing to lay down their lives? That some of them were your friends, and you probably have no idea how hard it must be for them to be the bigger people and put aside what you've done to them all for the sake of something bigger?"

I don't feel him struggling against me anymore. Is that a good sign? "You don't know the first thing about me!"

"I've heard all the stories! I know that you were so bored with your lack of attention that you almost drowned somebody, you stole a duel runner that one of your friends put his heart and soul into building over several years, and you made the same person wear some sorry excuse for a mark of shame that _you_ deserve _on his face_ ," I say.

I can feel blood beginning to well up in my nose; it brings remnants of the lightheadedness I felt a few hours ago when I was bleeding out in the hospital. It hasn't been enough time for me to fully recharge.

I press the heel of my hand against my nostril and continue, my voice half-muffled.

"I'm pretty sure no one has gotten a single apology from you yet. You effectively tried to ruin the lives of your former friends and you can't even muster up the decency for one little meaningful 'I'm sorry'! As if that'll rebuild every bridge you burned, but at least it's a start." I try to search his expression for a reaction beyond denial. "All the people you left in Satellite had dreams, Jack. All of your friends. Suddenly none of them could have those anymore because of you, because you fell for somebody's vanity trap and decided that your dreams were more important than anyone else's life."

I breathe out through my mouth, afraid of doing anything that'll make my nosebleed worse. "I'm going to put you down now. But if you try to fight Yusei again... I've watched him suffer for the past three days, and if you hurt him again, I don't care who the fuck you think you are, I'm going to beat the crap out of you."

He plummets down to the grass, stumbling a little as his feet hit solid ground, and I lean over to let the blood from my nose drip into the dirt.

"You wanna be self-righteous?" Jack remarks. " _Protective_ , and all that shit? You don't know either of us. You wanna try to intimidate me, play guard dog for Yusei, but you don't know me. You don't know _him_."

"There's a separation between knowing somebody and caring about somebody. _Knowing_ a person doesn't mean you have to _like_ them. You _knowing_ Yusei just means that you were able to hurt him."

"And, what? _You're_ just gonna be silent through all this?"

I realize he's talking to Yusei—who _has_ been silent this whole time.

After a long pause, I hear Yusei admit, "I don't want to kill Kiryu. That's all."

"Then I will!" Jack exclaims. "You've got your new friend to go yelling at me about fighting, meanwhile you don't want to!"

"He didn't make me do anything," I snap. "I just hate your attitude."

"Last I checked, nobody asked you to butt in! You don't get to just pop back up and pretend you've been here the whole time! And you don't get to tell me how to deal with _my_ friends!"

I don't know if it makes things better or worse, but my brother suddenly appears. Almost out of thin air, or maybe I didn't notice him running at us from the other side of the clearing. His elbow cracks into Jack's face so hard that Jack goes flying down into the grass.

I'm about to start yelling at my brother, too—that I just stopped a fight, we don't need to start one again, but Evan starts talking before I can.

"Listen, you chickenshit, _first of all_ , you don't talk to my sister like that," he says. "Second of all, you're not allowed to play pretend that you're the one in the right here. You can get all high and mighty about the fact that Silvan 'doesn't know you', but guess what? _I do_. I've been there through everything you've done, and none of it gives you the right to be anything other than a fucking awful person. And don't you dare try to pretend you're a better friend to Yusei than anybody else here, because if you were his friend at all, you wouldn't have stolen from him—which, _I_ also got to witness the aftermath of. _You_ didn't."

Jack dabs at his bleeding nose. "I don't owe _you_ any explanations."

"Uh, yeah! You fucking do! But lucky for you, I don't want one! I don't need your explanation to know your only motivation is that you're a lying, cheating, heartless sonofabitch! None of us are happy that you're here! You don't deserve that mark, you don't deserve people staking their lives on your actions, because you historically haven't picked anybody but yourself! But you're gonna stand up and brush yourself off, and you're coming with us to Satellite whether you like it or not! As soon as it's all over, you can go right back to being a friendless washout that lied about his heritage to get famous, but right now, you owe all of us your cooperation! And you don't get to say anything to or about me or Yusei unless you grow some humanity and manage, at the very fucking least, an apology! Are we clear on that?"

Jack stares silently at him.

" _Good,_ " Evan spits. "Stupid bastard." He turns to Yusei; I see his face and realize that it looks like he's been crying. "Look, I don't want Kiryu dead, either. And, if I'd been told I had to kill him, I'd be thinking about it like you probably are right now. You have to have faith that there might be a way for us to help him, or—or _something_. I know that's a lot for me to ask of you. But you're in this as much as Jack is, and we all need to see what we can do to save our home. We can try to figure out the rest along the way. Okay?"

Yusei breathes a sigh. "Okay." There's a pause. "Are you all right?"

"Man, I'm never all right. But you have a whole bunch of fucking people to keep alive, so I'm going to do what I do best and suppress my feelings until all of this has blown over." His head whips around, toward the gazebo and the little circle of trees around it. "Hey, come out. I know you're there."

Rua and Ruka suddenly peer out from behind a tree growing up behind the gazebo. In all of the commotion, I didn't even sense that Ruka was near us.

"Sorry for all of the drama," Evan tells them. "And the language."

"It's okay," Rua says, without missing a beat. "Our mom used to curse on phone calls all the time."

Ruka smacks his shoulder.

"I hate to commandeer this godsent celestial freakin' mess, but you all need to make a decision about what you're going to do," Evan continues. " _Something_ picked you. And it picked you for a reason—this is a job somebody's gotta do." He gestures toward me. "Silvan, help me out here."

"What?"

"Be motivational, there's four of them and one of me."

My hand still squished over my nose, I say, "Okay, yeah. Right. Yeah. Evan's right. You got picked, so this is your job. I hate to guilt you into it, but if you don't do it, it sounds like a whole lot of people are going to die." I look toward Aki. "We can't tell you how to feel about doing it, but it doesn't change the fact that, right now, there's only one way to fix everything. Two of you have almost died and you all glow like street neon, so I think we're past the point of denial. This is happening. And you're the only people who can do something about it."

There's a second of silence.

" _Fine_ ," Jack says. "Fuck you, Evan. I'm gonna fight, though."

"Eat a dick," Evan retorts. "I wasn't giving _you_ a choice in the matter, anyways."

"I'll fight, too," Ruka pipes up. "Neo Domino and Satellite might not be shiny or perfect, but I want to protect them."

"I'll fight," Aki adds. "I don't want my life to end right after it's only just started."

Yusei's the last to chime in. "I'm not going to stop looking for a different way to solve things. But I'm not just going to let my home burn."

"Good," Evan says. "Now let's go get Director Loves-To-Withhold-Important-Details. I'm almost positive he has more to tell you."

On the way back toward the house, four very quiet Signers in tow, I walk close enough to Evan to murmur, "Hey, you know I love you, right?"

He breathes a sigh. "I love you too, kid."

"...we'll figure something out. Maybe he's still in there somewhere."

"In my experience," he says, his voice like the inside of a grave, "you survive longer if you always expect the worst."

I hope desperately that the universe, or _whatever's_ out there orchestrating this death march of misfit kids, proves him wrong.


	24. Scar Souvenir

Goodwin sends us all back to Satellite before sunset.

During the effort by me and Evan to try to motivate our friends (and Jack) to fight, Mikage tells us, Goodwin had to excuse himself to attend some meeting downtown. Though, I suppose he expected the Signers to come to their senses about the plan for fighting the Dark Signers, because Mikage already had instructions and a full team of Securities to escort us to the helicopter that'll take us back across the sound.

Ushio, who's one in the team, gives Yusei a dirty look and full-on _curses_ when he sees Evan.

Evan offers a huge, shit-eating grin. "Hey, Officer, good to see you!"

"How the hell did you get here, you goddamned dumpster diver?"

"Huh. _Dumpster diver_. That's a new one." Evan waves him off. "Did they force you to babysit us, Ushio? Or have you just missed us too much?"

"Watch yourself, Levine," Ushio snaps.

"I wish you and Yusei wouldn't poke so much at Securities," I mutter to him as we all pile into a car. "It makes me nervous."

"It's part of being a Satellite, they're shitty to us, so we get to be shitty back."

"What happens when they get too annoyed and drag you off to the Detention Center?"

"I've got two functioning legs and a working spine." He grins. "That's when I run."

We all get caravanned off of Goodwin's little home island, across town, and to the Bureau headquarters. The helicopter that's supposed to take us to Satellite is on the roof. By then, our Security escort has left us and it's only Mikage and Ushio going with us to Satellite. Evan, who now knows what to expect of me, sits close enough that I can cling to his arm on the ride over.

I stay very quiet, eyes squeezed shut, trying to spirit myself away to some different mental world the whole ride. I can only faintly hear other people talking, some slightly distinct voices, and otherwise nothing besides the helicopter engine. I'm the first one anybody lets wobble off onto the ground.

Somebody who knew where they were going was obviously navigating, because we landed right in front of Martha's house. Martha's already out front, surrounded by children, holding a few folded white towels. She must have come out in the middle of doing laundry, or something.

I wave. "Hi Mom!"

Martha beams.

Takuya and Jun come streaking toward Evan; Evan whisks Jun up and sets him on his shoulders.

"You didn't bother Martha too badly while I was gone, did you?" He asks. "Obviously I can't keep you from poking at her if I'm not here."

Miyu grabs onto my legs. "How was your trip?"

"It was okay. But I don't like traveling by air," I say.

"Silvan," Martha warns. "Why are you covered in blood?"

"I, um. I'll change my shirt!"

"Yes, I think that's a good idea."

Yusei, Aki, and the twins join us, and Martha and the children take note of them. Martha takes note of Aki first.

"You must be the comatose girl," Martha observes. "I'm glad to see you're all right, you gave Silvan, _particularly_ , quite a scare."

"I-I guess, that is me!" Aki replies. "My name's Aki Izayoi. It's nice to meet you."

"A pleasure to meet you, as well. My name is Martha. I take care of most of the children in this district."

"Martha!" Micchan exclaims. "There are more twin people like Evan and Silvan! Are you magic, too?"

"What did I say?" Evan groans. "It's not magic!"

"Same thing!" Jun shouts from atop my brother's shoulders.

"At least _try_ to call it _psychic_ , you little gremlins."

"Be nice," Martha retorts. Her expression suddenly blanks, and I turn to see what she's looking at. Jack, with an equally blank expression and his hands in his pockets, is making his way toward us with Mikage and Ushio.

That's right, I forgot. Martha raised Jack, too. She has to know all about what he's done.

"Jack," she says curtly. "It's about time you showed your face back here, I've been waiting for you to clean your room for almost four years."

Is—Is it my imagination? Or is Jack turning red?

Martha holds out her hand. "Well, no matter how long it took you to come back, you look the same as you did when you left. Tell me how much you've changed. What was it we used to say? 'A king always…'?"

Jack, stiffly, bends to kiss the back of her hand. "...a king always shows respect to a lady…"

Evan turns around, for some reason, with Jun still on his shoulders. I see Yusei with his hand over his mouth, as if trying to stifle a cough, but I think he might actually be trying to hide laughter.

Mikage's voice, behind me, says, "Hello. My name is Mikage Sagiri, I work for the Bureau. This is Officer Ushio. We're here by order of Director Goodwin for official business—"

"I know about the glowing dragon," Martha says plainly, waving her off. "I suppose you're all staying for dinner."

I turn to see Mikage, who looks completely taken aback. "I-I… Um… T-That's very kind of you."

"It's no trouble at all." Martha then turns to pin her eyes directly on Yusei. "You didn't take a single nap today, did you?"

"Sorry," he says sheepishly.

"Mmhm. How are you feeling?"

"I could go for some ice."

"Then go handle that. We should all get inside soon, before it gets darker."

"Or the fog comes!" Miyu chirps.

" _Fog_?" I ask.

"This afternoon, after you left, a black fog rolled into the Residential District," Martha exhales, sounding exasperated.

"Everyone who got caught in it vanished!" Micchan pipes up. "Gone, like _poof_!"

"Thankfully, it didn't reach us here," Martha amends. "But I'm not about to take any risks."

At that, we all head into the house. Yusei presses for more information about the fog, and asks about Crow, Saiga, and Rally and the guys from the subway. Martha says that she's heard from none of them, save for Saiga, who went out a while ago to see how empty the outer districts were. Yusei, looking very brood-y, gets his ice and heads outside, presumably, to check on his duel runner.

Evan tells me not to bother him, even though I feel tempted to go out and ask him to talk to me. But, if my brother says not to do anything, I should probably listen. He knows Yusei better than I do, anyways.

The children strike up all sorts of conversation with Ruka and Rua, and most of them steer very clear of Ushio and Mikage; all except for Takuya, who looks at Ushio like he's starstruck.

I stay inside until the sun has gone down, loitering with Aki and giving her a mini-tour of the house. Then, when it seems like enough time has passed and there's nothing more that I can think of to do, I look for an opportunity to sneak outside and ask Yusei how he is.

He's hunched on the ground next to his duel runner, a cart full of supplies next to him. He looks up when he hears me. "Oh, hey."

"You look really worried about something," I say.

"Well, yeah. I'm supposed to help try to save the world and kill one of my old best friends anytime now."

"Still worried about Kiryu?" I sigh.

"Gee, was I supposed to get over it on the helicopter ride over here? I had no idea."

"Look, I'm not telling you to do anything," I snap. "I just asked a question. Plus, I'm worried about my brother. I have no idea what's going on in his head because he's pretending there's nothing wrong with him. You should consider thinking that you're not the only one broken up about Kiryu."

" _Evan_ doesn't have to kill him."

"No, but he's doing a damn good job pretending that you don't, either."

He sighs. "...if I fight him now, I doubt I'm going to stand a chance, anyways. Look at me, I'm still halfway dead."

"You're not halfway dead. You just need to take it easy as long as you can. Go hard for the Dark Signers and rest in between. When it's all over, you can sleep all you want."

"Now who's being insensitive?"

"I'm not being insensitive. There's a lot at stake here. Give _me_ the fucking mark, _I'll_ go save Satellite. Obviously we've all forgotten that you're not the only one here who's had a lot to go through in the past week." I slide onto the ground with him. "Kiryu was your friend, that much is true. Friends don't kill friends, _obviously_. So who says that this new Kiryu is still your friend? Who says that he's not being controlled by something?"

"I… I feel responsible for his death. I should have done something more to keep him out of trouble."

"You can't beat yourself up about something he did. Evan told me he killed somebody, and in that case, he deserved the Detention Center. That was all his choice, not yours. The only thing that wishing stuff were different will do is serve as a testament to who you are as a person. It's not going to fix him, but it also certainly doesn't make you responsible for what became of him."

"A life for a life," he says hollowly. "That's what Goodwin said. He dies, or I do. And he did a pretty good job of almost winning that battle the first time."

"You didn't hold back on him, at the very least. You just didn't know what to expect. Next time, you'll be more prepared. I know you will."

He sighs. Lifts the towel full of melting ice off of his side. "I ran diagnostics on my duel runner."

"Oh, that's good. Did you figure out what went wrong?"

"...I did." I look toward him, wondering why he's suddenly become so silent, and find his eyes flickering over me. "Do you remember what happened that night? What you were doing?"

" _Me_?" I ask. "I-I don't know. I remember rushing down to you with Crow, and first thing after the Line came down, we went looking for you. I found you and your duel runner, and Crow helped me lift you up onto his runner, and then I followed him back here."

"Anything else? Anything else strange?"

"No," I say. "Why? What did you find?"

"Do you… remember bleeding at all?"

" _Bleeding_ ," I repeat. ""I don't think so? I mean… maybe? I can't remember. Um…" I didn't bleed that night, I don't think. What's he talking about? We picked him up and we took him back here to Martha, and we sat inside for a really long time… "Actually, I might have? You mean a nosebleed, right?"

"Yes."

"Yeah, I think I might have, but… It was just a normal nosebleed," I say. "I never used my powers."

"Are you sure?" He asks. "Because when I ran my diagnostic, it displayed that nothing went wrong on the inside. Something blew the front axle, and it wasn't because it malfunctioned. It would have registered a different type of collision if I had hit something hard enough for it to break."

"You… What are you suggesting?"

"I think you saved my life."

"You… you think I… _what_?"

"I think," he says slowly, "that, whether or not you meant to, _you_ broke the axle. And if you hadn't done that, I would be dead."

"I-I… I couldn't have."

"You're so much stronger than you believe," he amends. "You hid yourself from Divine. You saved my life. You fought Aki in a duel and won. You stood up to Jack. You wanna talk about issues? Don't accuse me of forgetting about you, because I haven't forgotten _any_ of that stuff you had to live through. Divine may have hurt you, Silvan, but I certainly don't think he broke you."

"You keep saying that," I tell him. "That I'm not broken. But I know how I feel, Yusei. You don't know about that."

"Maybe I don't," he says. "But I'd like to."

I shake my head. "I-I don't want to talk about this anymore. And I think you're wrong about the axle, you should check it again."

"Even if you were broken, Silvan, it's not like you can't be fixed. People can _always_ be fixed."

"Just check your axle," I say, turning to go back inside.

"I did," he calls after me. " _You_ broke it, remember?"

That's not possible. I was halfway across the track from him, I can't Waste that far. At least, I've never tried. I didn't feel anything, I didn't do anything. The nosebleed was a fluke. I couldn't have saved him. I couldn't have.

I pass Evan, who's sitting with the twins at the kitchen table. "Uh… Everything okay? You look pretty frazzled."

"Everything's fine," I mumble.

He puts his hands up. "Okay, okay."

The Divine thing was bad enough, too. I need people to stop mentioning it. I don't want to keep talking about it. Everything always seems to cycle back to him, to what he did, and to how I can do all of these things despite all that he did. I just want it to stop. I want to be me without Divine for two seconds.

I stay in my spare room upstairs for a little while and spend my time shuffling through my backpack. I empty it all out and sort everything as best I can, like the food, the water, the books, and my tinkering supplies. I finally find the time to peel myself out of my bloody shirt and pull on a clean white one underneath my overalls.

All of the care put into it makes me think of Seria. Makes me _miss_ her. Mikage said that Seria turned herself in to give them information about Divine; I wonder where she is now. If I asked, would Mikage be able to put me in touch with her? Is she thinking about me, too?

I hope she stays safe during all of this Dark Signer stuff. And I hope that she gives the Bureau everything she can about Divine.

At some point, someone comes and knocks on the open door; I make out Aki in the low light.

"Hey, what are you doing sitting in the dark by yourself?" She asks. "Come downstairs, Martha made everybody dinner."

I pull myself to my feet. "That was nice of her."

"She's a very nice lady," Aki says. "I can't believe you were here before Arcadia… does it feel strange to be back?"

"I'm sure it would feel stranger," I say, "to remember being here at all."

"...right," she replies awkwardly. "Your brother's nice. He seems very reserved, though."

"Really? I hadn't noticed."

"I think he's a lot like you."

"I'm glad we got to find each other," I tell her. "If I had no one to go back to, I don't know what kind of position I'd be in."

"If it counts," she says, "even if you didn't have him you'd always have me."

I hook my arm through hers on our way down the stairs.

Everybody is gathered in the kitchen, sitting in chairs or on the table, on the floor or on the kitchenette counter. I only notice Mikage and Ushio missing; I wonder if they went patrolling, or if Mikage went to call Goodwin or someone at the Bureau to talk about plans, or something. Those seem like a viable reasons for them both to be missing.

Martha ladles some stew for both me and Aki, and the two of us find a place to stand by the back window. The most noise in the room is coming from over near the kitchenette, where Yusei's surrounded by children.

"...and once we defeat the Dark Signers, they're going to connect the bridge," he's saying. "Goodwin promised me. Everything will get better for all of us. You can go to school and grow up to get good jobs. Nana, you can get real glasses. Takuya can go to the Security Academy."

"Goodwin promised to connect the bridge?" I say absently.

"It sounded like he did," Aki tells me. "Before he started talking about who the Dark Signers are, about Yusei's friend, Yusei said he would only promise to fight if Goodwin promised to connect Satellite and the city."

"Seems fair, Goodwin's used the Dark Signers as an excuse not to finish the bridge," I say. "But, gods, that's a tall order Yusei made."

"I know. I was expecting Goodwin not to oblige him."

"...but who says he'll keep the promise afterward?" I ask.

"I guess we'll see," Aki replies. "Goodwin can prove to us what kind of person he really is."

That's a good way to look at it. Though, after how secretive Goodwin has been, and still is, I'm having trouble believing that he would promise something so big on the spot. Maybe I'm misjudging him, and he really just cares about Neo Domino that much. But I can't shake the memory of how unnerved I was when I first met him. When he couldn't bother himself to give me even a semblance of truth.

"I like it here," Aki admits, a welcoming change of subject. "A little warm house with happy children... that's the childhood I always dreamed of."

"...me too," I murmur. "You called your parents before we left, didn't you?"

"Y-Yeah. They wanted to come too, actually. Me telling them it would be too dangerous for them didn't really help, but I promised them that we would have Security with us. I'm not really sure they know for sure what we're doing."

"Maybe that's better for them," I say. "You know, you don't have to live with them right away."

"I… I know. I still need to mull it over. I want to stay with them again, but I don't want the past to repeat itself. I-I'm not sure my heart could take it."

"If you ever feel uncomfortable or unwelcome there ever again, you come straight to me. No matter where I am or what I'm doing, I'll make time and a place for you."

"...thank you."

I keep watching Yusei tell his story, picking out words and phrases of his here and there over the children shouting questions. I wouldn't have ever pegged him as being a person who likes attention. Maybe it's different with children, though. I dig my spoon down into my bowl to make myself keep eating so that there's something to take my mind off of the details I don't want.

For a while, I lose myself in trying to not to think about anything that'll make me lose my appetite, when I could swear I feel myself being watched. It's that eerie sort of feeling I had right before Kiryu showed up to fight Yusei. And it's that familiarity that makes me think twice about brushing it off.

I sweep my eyes around the room, looking for a reaction from anyone else, and then my brother's voice booms, " _Silvan_!"

The window next to the table shatters. I feel like time is slowing down, between glass flying everywhere and the children screaming, and only on pure instinct do I lift up a hand to Waste.

Glass bounces backward into the wall. No one looks hurt, and I see my brother all the way across the room near Yusei and the children, his hand outstretched, too. Wasting with me.

That's why he called for me. To ask me to help him? But how could he have guessed that the window was going to blow inwards only a second before it happened?

"Everybody away from the window," Evan orders. "Everybody but Silvan and Aki."

Evan, it seems, is so used to protecting the other people in this house that he's going to deal with this until it gets worse. And I'm going to listen.

Aki meets me at the empty windowsill; she looks happy to be included. Determined, almost. Maybe it's the first time she's been asked to come to someone's defense rather than go on the attack. That's smart of Evan, I think, to call on psychics as protectors.

"I'm glad you said something," I tell him. "I was still trying to figure out what I was feeling."

"Me too," he says. "I heard it creaking. I've lived in this house for sixteen years and I've replaced enough of its boards to know what it sounds like when something in it is going to burst open."

Aki points out the open window, into the darkness of the woods. " _There_. There's someone there."

"Can you force them out into the open?"

Aki's duel disk slides open, and she reaches to shuffle through her cards. "I can try."

When she finds the right card, she sets it onto her duel disk, and the air around us comes alive with rose petals. Even in this darkness, I can see the trees outside swaying, bending in our direction, as if Aki is blowing whatever is out there in toward us.

I peer out into the darkness, squinting against the wind in my eyes, until I see a dark shape move beneath the trees. It nears us until I can see it a little better—enough to see the tuft of pale hair on its head.

"Stop," I blurt. It takes Aki a second to obey, but she reigns the wind in and readies to draw another card. "Look."

The figure raises his hand up to show the glowing purple shape of a spider on his arm. "My name is Rudger," he booms. "Any of you Signers willing to face me, step forward!"

A Dark Signer, here? So soon?

"What does he look like," Yusei demands from across the room.

"White hair," Evan says immediately. "Spider mark."

Aki has her duel disk raised like she wants to vault out the open window and go fight this guy. Yusei goes for his own duel disk, sitting on the kitchen counter, and straps it on. "He's mine."

"I'm going with you," Aki says sharply.

"We all are," Jack chimes in.

Evan doesn't question anything. "You guys go handle it. Kids, get up, we're going to the basement until they get back."

Takuya, Jun, and Micchan jump up and dart off, out of the kitchen. Miyu and Nana take a second, but they follow, with Martha taking up the rear.

"I-I'm going, too," I blurt, thinking of Yusei thrown off of his duel runner and Aki in her hospital bed. "I want to be there if something happens."

It's Aki who turns to me and says, "No. Stay here. You'll be safer."

"I need to be there in case one of you gets hurt," I press.

"You burned yourself out fighting with me, Silvan. Stay here with Evan and Martha and wait for us. Please. I don't want anything bad happening to you, either."

"Go with Evan," Yusei pipes up. "I promise we'll all come back unscathed."

"I'm going to quote you on that," Evan says. He grabs my arm. "Come on, Silvan, they're right. We're not Signers, we'll be safer here."

I swallow. "Okay, fine. But if you don't come back in an hour, I'm going out after you."

"That's totally fair."

"You'd better find wherever Ushio and Mikage went, too," Evan says. "Make sure they stay out of the danger area."

"They couldn't have gone too far," Ruka says.

"I'll look for them," Jack volunteers. "We'd better get out there before he breaks more than a window."

Yusei makes a beeline for the back door, followed by the other Signers and Rua, who's clinging to Ruka. I would ask him to stay with us, but judging by the fact that Ruka didn't ask him to stay, I would guess that she doesn't want to be separated from him.

Evan and I rush further back into the house, toward the basement, and as we go, we pass Martha.

Evan whirls and calls after her, "Martha?! Where are you going?"

"The boys didn't go to the basement, they went outside!" Boy, she sounds pissed. "I'm going to get them. I'll be back."

"B-Be careful!" I exclaim.

I keep following Evan until we reach the door around the corner from the stairs, and as soon as I'm inside on the stairwell, Evan shuts the door and encases us in total darkness.


	25. Seeing You Down Every Road

I practically skid down the stairs in my bad attempt to find my way down in the dark. I hear Evan clunking down after me, and I try to keep a hand on the wall to my left so that I don't walk right into something.

The basement is cold, besides being dark, and I can smell something damp. I feel my way past a cabinet.

"Evan, I'm scared!" I think it's Miyu who's shouting. "I-It's really dark!"

"Where did Martha go?" Nana cries. "And—And Jun, Takuya, and Micchan!"

"Martha went out to look for them, they ran outside after the others," I say. "Follow my voice. Over here."

A little hand grabs onto the leg of my overalls, and then the little body it belongs to dives into my arms. A second tiny form squishes against my side.

Miyu's voice says, "I-I'm scared of the dark!"

"Okay, okay," Evan remarks. "It's okay, you two. I think I still might have enough to make a light."

"Enough _what_?" I say, and then—across from me, suddenly, Evan's face lights up. Crackling upward from his open palm is a thick tongue of fire.

Seeing it makes me think a hundred different things, like _what is he doing_ and _how is he doing it_ , but the biggest thing on my mind is that Divine could make fire.

"Quick," he says, "Get a candle, before I run out."

Nana shoots away from where she was curled into my side, and the fire brightens outward for a second, as if to try to shed light on the whole room. Before I know it, Nana's holding a lantern up toward Evan and his flame. It keeps crackling off of his skin for a few seconds even after the lamp is lit before it vanishes into the air.

"That's a little better," Evan says. "...Silvan, are you okay?"

I swallow a thick feeling that's formed in my throat. "H-How did you do that?"

He looks genuinely confused. "You mean… you can't do it, too?"

" _W-What_?"

"You said… You said we had the same powers," he explains. "I guess I just assumed?"

"What," I repeat, "was _that_?"

"I don't know what it's called," he continues. "Just that I can do it. It's usually stuff like rain, or—or fire, but most energies I can touch, I can absorb. I've absorbed impact, too, like from falling down or getting hit. Then, if I need the energy later, I can just push it back out." He gestures to the candle. "I keep fire on purpose, most of the time. Just in case."

I—I know that class. He's not an Elementalist. That makes me feel a teeny bit less nauseous. I just have to scrub the memory of him making fire away. "Why didn't you tell me about it?"

"You said we had the same powers! I thought I wouldn't _have_ to mention it."

"I-I _thought_ we did." I put my focus on Miyu, still squished between my arms, to try and keep my knees from wobbling. I don't want my legs to give out on her.

"Maybe we are the same?" He tries. "Maybe you've just never figured to use it before?"

"Or maybe," I say, swallowing, "it got shocked out of me."

"No, it couldn't have." He shakes his head. "One time I stuck my hand too near an open wire, and I just absorbed that electricity. If you had it, too, you would have absorbed all that. Right?" He sighs. "I don't know. I don't know a lot about it."

"It's... It's called Internalism."

"...you know what it is?"

"Yeah," I say softly. "I've read about it. And its' counterpart, Expulsionism." That calls back blurry memories of me going through books, wondering what other types of psychics were out there; Expulsionists, Internalists, Mediums, Twisters, Empaths… "They usually go hand in hand, that someone can Internalize and then Expel, but I read a few cases where some psychics could only Internalize. It's a really, _really_ rare class."

"Well, that's neat. I'm rare." He motions Miyu and me toward him, and we shuffle together to sit with him and Nana around the lantern. "I started doing it pretty early on. Not long after you vanished. I went out into a rainstorm and damn near killed myself with the pneumonia. Every time I sneezed, I'd shoot water everywhere."

"That's… pretty funny, actually."

"...are you sure you've never done it?" He asks. "You haven't ever tried?"

"I-I didn't know it _apparently_ ran in our family," I stammer. "And… And I feel like, if I could do it, Divine would have known about it and exploited it."

"We're twins, we should be the same," he complains. "Maybe I could teach you how to do it! I just want to be sure…"

"I appreciate the sentiment—"

"Please? I gotta know if you're just… dormant, or something. If there's some part of you Divine _didn't_ mess with."

I shift uncomfortably. "...fine. I'll humor you. How does it work?"

"Well you have to have absorbed something first."

"Internalized."

"Right. And since we don't know if you have, the best way to find out is to try to push it out."

"Expel."

"...I'll have to get used to that."

"So teach me how it works?"

"It's... weird," he says. "You know how, when you Waste, you sort of go about it like you're digging down in yourself? It's sort of like that. I can't really explain it other than the fact that it feels like tunneling down until you feel something there, and sort of… I don't know, _breathing_ it out."

"Well, if it's that similar to Wasting, it shouldn't be that hard to _pretend_ I'm capable of it."

"You said you were going to humor me."

"I didn't say I'd humor you without complaining."

I see him roll his eyes. "Just try it. Hand out and go to town."

I rest my hand on my knee and try to translate his explanation to something I can actually try to accomplish. I know very well how hard it is to use your powers if you, first, don't know how, and second, have a teacher that doesn't quite know how to explain things.

When I Waste, it's like I have another pair of hands. I can reach out and grab or push or throw. All it takes is for me to gather my focus into two points that turn into those hands, and once I have that, they'll go wherever I ask them to. I've practiced enough that it takes me only seconds to gather up the power to Waste something, even though I can't usually do it for long amounts of time. I don't know if this is supposed to feel the same. I really don't expect to feel anything.

I reach down, down, down, like I'm going to Waste, looking for something, _anything_ , that might be like what he was talking about.

"See?" I say after a second. "Nothing's happening."

"You didn't even try for that long!"

"Evan, I'm telling you, I'm not like you."

Right as I say it, a burst of blue electricity crackles upward off of my open palm.

Evan jumps up, like he's victorious or something, but a scream struggles out of my mouth as the electricity dissipates into the air.

"What the fuck, what the _fuck_!"

" _Children_ ," Evan moans, but he sounds torn between trying to keep the basement rated G and checking on me; I'm feeling like I'm going to throw up. He's next to me all of a sudden, clasping my trembling hands between his. "Hey, it's okay, it's okay."

"W-What was that! What… What did I do!"

"You… you Expelled something, right? That's what's it called? You can do it, Silvan, you—"

"I-I need to lie down. Oh my gods. What the fuck was that."

Where did that static come from? From me? Forget the subclasses I didn't know I had. I couldn't… I couldn't have taken that in from Arcadia? Could I? But where else would it have come from?

The fact that those punishments—that Divine and all he's done to destroy me—are still there, lingering inside me, makes me feel like I'm all the way back at square one. I can't escape him. I can't escape anything he did.

"Hey, just breathe," he urges. "You're bleeding. Here, let me get you something."

Miyu curls into my side and strokes my arm. Nana scoots closer and puts a hand on my leg. Evan gets up to go shuffle through some of the crates and shelves. I lift a shaking hand to try and wipe the blood away from my nose, keeping the hand that Expelled electricity curled against the floor, far away from my face.

"I'm sorry," I hear him say as he presses a slightly damp rag into my hand. "I should have guessed… I shouldn't have made you do that."

"...b-but now I know," I whisper, even though it doesn't make me feel any better. I press the rag against my nose.

"No, that was really stupid of me. I should have known better. I'm so sorry. You don't have to do that ever again."

"D-Don't… Don't apologize, I just…" I trail off because I have to stop talking about it, otherwise I know I'm going to throw up.

I could have gone the rest of my life without having anything to do with any sort of electricity. Seeing it again, and even more seeing it _come out of me_ , feels an indescribable kind of awful.

I don't even know how I did that. How long I've been able to do it. Divine never had me use it. Did he know I had it? If he did, wouldn't he have made me use it? If Evan just discovered he had it one day, why didn't I? Why did I have to put in the effort to call upon it?

I get to lie down on my side for a little bit, the rag clutched in against my nose. It's eerily quiet down here, and underground enough that I can't hear the house creaking anymore.

"Evan?" Miyu's tiny voice asks after a while. "What is Yusei doing?"

"There are bad people that want to do bad things to Satellite," Evan tells her. "He's fighting them. Everyone out there is."

"What kind of bad things?" Nana chimes.

"Hurt people. Destroy their homes."

"A-Are Jun, Takuya, and Micchan going to be okay?"

"I'm sure they will," Evan says. "Martha's going to give them an earful for thinking they can just run outside in the middle of all of this."

"Will the bad people hurt them, too?" Miyu asks.

"I hope not."

"They have these monsters," I say hollowly. "Big black monsters, like shadows, with lights in patterns on their bodies like electric signs. They're taller than the tallest buildings, and they steal the souls of people to keep themselves alive."

"W-Will… will they steal everybody's souls outside?"

"I-I don't know," I stammer. "I've only ever seen one of them. It… It was what hurt Yusei."

That Dark Signer outside will no doubt have his own Immortal. If Yusei was right, and I really did save him from Kiryu's… will he be able to save himself this time?

"Evan?" Nana asks. "Was what Yusei was saying really true? About the bridge?"

"If he said it, it's probably true. I don't see any reason why he would have lied about it."

I try to listen to them talk, the little questions and answers and words and soothing voices, instead of the way my body feels. Truth be told, I feel like I'm trapped in somebody else's corpse. Maybe it's Cipher's. All I know is that I'm tired of having no escape.

For a very long time, the four of us are there in the basement, and I watch wax drip off of the candle to pool down in the base of the lantern. Usually, I'm good at numbing myself against certain self-realizations. This time it's taking longer than it normally does.

"Silvan?" Evan murmurs. "Do… You feel that too, right?"

I raise my head off of the floor a little. "What?"

"Do you feel that?" He repeats, pointing upward. "There's somebody upstairs."

I swallow and take a second to try and figure out what he's talking about. When I get myself out of my own mind, though, I find that it's almost impossible to ignore. Something's definitely moving up above us. "...they… they don't feel like a psychic."

"I know," he says gravely. "I feel like I need to go check."

"Don't," I urge. "We can't sense anything but psychics, Evan, so whatever it is, it's definitely not a normal person, but it can't be a psychic, either."

"I'm in charge. If someone is in Martha's house and they're not supposed to be," Evan says softly, "then I need to know who it is."

"I-I'm going with you."

"No. Somebody needs to stay down here with Miyu and Nana, and you still look really unwell."

"Evan, I don't want you going up there alone," I say. "Whatever it is doesn't feel right. I don't want you in danger. Especially given the situation the others are in right now."

His eyes look very dark, even in the candlelight. "...I wish we could lock this door from the inside."

"I'm going with you. And I'm not arguing about it."

"Fine." Evan puts his hand on Nana's head. "Kid, Silvan and I are going to be right back. You need to keep the door closed and only open it if you hear me call for you. Okay?"

"D-Don't leave!" Miyu cries.

"Shh." Evan's voice is a special sort of gentle. "There's somebody upstairs, and my magic told me it might not be somebody good. Let Silvan and me go take care of the bad guys and keep you safe. Okay? I'm sure Martha will be back with Takuya, Jun, and Micchan soon. We'll be right back, too."

Nana puts her arm around Miyu, and the two of them huddle closer around the lamp. Together, Evan and I fumble our way up the stairs and creep outside, into the hall, shutting the door behind us.

Evan walks very softly. He must know where every creaky board is in this house, because he doesn't make a sound. I try to follow in his footsteps as exactly as possible.

We're halfway toward the kitchen when he whispers, "They're… They're upstairs."

"Lead the way," I say.

We creep up the stairs, and I'm wondering what the best course of action might be against an intruder. It can't just be a random looter that walked in when the house was empty, can it? If it were, I don't think I would be able to feel like this. I just feel… _wrong_. Like I did when Yusei and Kiryu were racing to the death.

Maybe I'm sensing Yusei fighting that man, Rudger? How far away are they, even? Then again, how would Evan know that there was somebody upstairs?

I follow Evan towards—towards his bedroom. Is it a coincidence that this intruder's wandered their way into my brother's room?

All care suddenly leaves him; when we get close enough, Evan kicks the already ajar door open and it hits the wall with a loud, jarring 'bang' noise. My brother looks like he's ready to start a war with whoever it is that's wandering around his room, until a voice says, "What an entrance."

I... I've heard that voice somewhere. And I know Evan has, too, because suddenly all the color has leached from his face.

A silver haired boy turns from where he's standing by Evan's tool chest. He's holding the picture I've seen behind the door, of Evan and the Duel Gang. "Hi there, handsome. Have you missed me?"

" _Kiryu_." My brother sounds so far away.

"I didn't know you still had this picture." He spins the frame between his pale hands. "What a horrible reminder of what pitiful people we once were."

I think Evan's doing his best to compose himself. But it takes him a second to say, with a very obviously forced calm, "What are you doing here?"

"I came to see you, of course. Have I been too silent over the past few years? My apologies for not calling you back, I was a little occupied."

Evan, very softly, says, "Look at you."

Kiryu grins. "What about me?"

"What have you become, Kiryu?"

"I was nothing before this."

"You're wrong, and you know it."

"Am I?" He takes a step forward, and Evan leans like he wants to back up, but he's rooted to the floor. "I did a lot of thinking in the Detention Center, really. Yusei did put me in there, so maybe his death will be the thing that finally satisfies me."

"Yusei didn't put you anywhere. Kiryu, you _killed_ somebody." He pauses. "Is that what this is about? Is that why you want him dead, because you think he turned you in?"

"You poor sweet boy, I _saw_ him selling me out. Whatever he's told you, I'm sure it's only to turn you against me. I was always going to come back for you, no matter how I ended up escaping that place. I wouldn't leave you behind like he did."

Evan's still seemingly rooted to the ground as Kiryu slinks closer, hand outstretched, like he's going to touch Evan. I dart underneath my brother's arm and spread my hands out in front of him. Like a bad attempt to keep the two of them separate. "L-Leave him alone! Don't touch him!"

"Oh, I know _you_ ," Kiryu remarks. "You're the little thing that helped carry Yusei off after I ripped him open. Shame, you should have left him there to bleed out. You would have done us all a favor."

He's so close to us now, I can see where the faint shadows of bruises bloom on his face and throat. He's pale as death, and stands as still as it, too. I think it's a Detention Center mark on the right side of his face, curving down over his brow and straight down his cheek to his jaw, but it's not yellow like Yusei's or Crow's. It's reddish, like dried blood.

And, oh, _fuck_ , his _eyes_. That's the thing that makes me sure that he isn't human. Not green, like they are in the picture he's holding, but a startling bright gold. And, where the whites of his eyes should be, there's only black.

"Oh," Kiryu exhales suddenly, as if in realization. "Oh, I see the resemblance! You must be Silvan, alive against all odds. Your brother used to tell me about you. The two of us are alike, then, if we've both come back to him straight from our graves."

"I-I'm not like you," I stutter. "I-I don't want anybody to die."

"You're young," he scoffs. "Naïve. You'll learn soon enough that some people just shouldn't be allowed to keep living."

"Maybe you didn't deserve to die," I say, "but neither does anyone else."

"You must know so little about your brother's world. His _friends_. I won't hold it against you that you haven't had the time to accurately judge them, but I would advise you to stay away before it's too late." He collapses into a fit of laughter all of a sudden. "Or, better yet! You could help me put an end to them once and for all, before anyone else winds up like me."

What is he asking? What does he want? I don't know how to deal with this. With my brother, frozen at my back, and a Dark Signer less than a foot away from me.

"How about it? You could be one of us, Evan. I know you have reservations about Yusei, especially after he left you here to go chasing Jack."

"How… How did you know that?" My brother asks.

"You were always different. You were too good for the rest of them." Kiryu pins his black and gold eyes on my arm, spread out in front of my brother's chest. "You could come with me. We could be so wonderful together. Everybody else left you, but I didn't. Not willingly. We can still be together. You and I can give Yusei and Jack exactly what they deserve."

"I… I won't help you kill more of our friends, Kiryu."

"They were never our friends, not after what they did." He extends his hand for Evan. "Just come with me. Everything will be okay again."

"You can't," I blurt. "I-I don't know what he's asking of you, Evan, but you _can't_. I _know_ Yusei is good. And I'm not going to lose you, not after I just got you back."

"I know you, Evan," Kiryu croons. "I know you can't walk away from anyone you love."

My brother, his voice soft and stoic, says, "I lov _ed_ you."

"...I wish he hadn't turned you against me." Kiryu's voice becomes very, very dark.

"I wish you were still alive. That you were still Kiryu. I wish you understood that Yusei isn't the enemy here."

"There are sides in this war, Evan, and I want you to pick the right one. My offer will always stand. Sooner or later, you'll realize that I'm the only one who can protect you from what's going to rip this pitiful district apart, and when that happens, you'll come to me in the B.A.D."

"I'm… not going to do that, Kiryu. I love our home, and you once did, too. If you want it gone, you're going to have to get rid of me, too."

"...always a martyr. Such a disgusting trait. You must've learned it from Yusei." Kiryu turns and lays the photo from the wall on top of the tool case. "I won't give up on you. If I have to give you an incentive, I will. I'll make you see my side long before the old gods reign fire on this world."

Then I—I blink. And Kiryu is gone.

"Fuck," Evan breathes. " _Fuck_ I'm gonna fucking _die_. What the _fuck_ just happened. _Fuck_. Silvan, _please_ tell me you didn't see that too. _Please_ tell me I was hallucinating. Please tell me that wasn't _fucking_ real."

I dive forward to try and support him as he wobbles off of his feet. "E-Evan, breathe. Breathe, _please_."

He keeps cursing and hyperventilating, and I keep trying to hold him up; before I know it I'm on the floor holding my sobbing, dry-heaving brother, who's also effectively three times my size and practically dead weight in my arms.

It takes a while for him to listen to me and actually breathe. I listen to him take breath after long breath, and I count the seconds between inhales and exhales. Four seconds in, four seconds held, eight seconds out.

"Good," I murmur. "Breathe. I'm right here. Everything's gonna be okay."

"I-I thought, after what Goodwin said, t-they'd just be those fucking spirits using their bodies. L-Like… Like _puppets_ , or some shit."

"Okay. Okay."

"B-But… that was him. I mean, it was _really_ him." His voice sounds so tiny. "He's really like that now. He's really gone."

"I'm sorry." I don't know what else to say to him. "I'm so sorry, Evan."

"H-He was asking for me to be like _that_. He wants me to be like him. What a sick fucking _joke_."

I stroke my fingers through his hair. "I know. I know."

"Fuck. This is fucking _fucked_."

"Okay. I know."

"...A-At least there's one _fucking_ bright side to this."

"What's that?"

"We're both fucking messes, so maybe this time I don't have to suffer all by myself."

I can't manage anything like a laugh, I feel so emotionally drained from my own incident down in the basement, but I do say, "I'll punch your ex, you can punch the front door of Arcadia and pretend it's Divine."

"I wanna take a fucking _axe_ to the whole thing, is that allowed? And maybe change punch to piledrive."

"If that helps, then okay."

"...the worst part about that is that he still wants me, after all this. After prison, after death, after this wild fucking magic shitshow, he still wants me. After I told him to go away."

"Maybe that wasn't all him, then," I say. "Maybe it is what you think. Maybe it's half puppet show, half Kiryu. He's dead and possessed and lonely and he still needs you."

"But I'm… I'm not switching sides for him. Not ever. I can't do that to everybody else I love. I won't."

I swallow a thickness in my throat. Divine, an abuser. Kiryu, a murderer. "...I wonder why we couldn't just love normal people."

There's a pause before he says, "We're not normal people."

"We could be," I murmur.

"Yeah, but… not anytime soon."

We sit there together, curled into a ball, for a long time, and I listen to the house creaking with the wind and my brother trying to remember how to breathe.

The wind outside sounds too heavy to be natural. It makes me think of the Signers, my _friends_ , and where they could be right now. If they're okay. In a way, I'm glad they aren't here right now. I'm glad it's just me and Evan—the other half I never knew I had—leaning on each other. It makes me think of what he said the first day we met, the first day we really talked. It's easy rationalizing losing parents you never met. A sibling, the only blood you have besides yourself, is so much harder to let go of.

"We should get back to the girls," Evan sniffs, pulling away from my shoulder. "Do I look like I've been crying?"

"...yes, but it'll be dark down there. I don't think they'll notice."

"Okay. I guess you're right." He pulls himself to his feet and holds his hand out for me. "I'm technically the adult, I have to pretend I'm not scared."

I take his hand. "Look, I'm almost positive all of adulthood is pretending you aren't scared."

"Yeah, that's fair."

We walk downstairs together, me taking up the rear. He walks slowly enough that it makes me think he doesn't want to quit being alone. But we do have to keep watching over Miyu and Nana, who are only children and already frightened enough without us losing grip on ourselves.

Evan knocks on the basement door when we get downstairs. "Nana? Miyu? It's Evan and Silvan, we're coming in!" He pulls the door open and slips down inside; I can see the candle flickering in the lamp from here.

Then there's a hand on my shoulder. I whirl around, the basement door still half open in my hand.

" _Boo_ ," Kiryu says.

Then, I don't know where I am. Just that it's no longer Martha's house.


	26. Good Night, Good Night

I don't know where I am, but it's cold and dark and I'm walking. The heels of my shoes kick up rocks around me every time I take a step.

I hurt all over, and I can't see through this thick fog. There's a faint purple glow trying to light my way, but it just reflects harmlessly off of the moisture hanging in the air. I feel almost like I'm walking in circles. Will I ever get out of here? Wherever ' _here_ ' is?

I keep walking and walking for what feels like forever, because I'm not sure there's anything else I can do. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, I can see the shape of a person wading toward me through all of this soupy fog.

".. _Silvan_?!"

I incline my head toward that voice, wondering who it is, wondering why they sound so urgent.

"Silvan!" The shape of the person comes closer and closer until I can finally make out Yusei through the haze and the relief plain on his face. "Thank goodness I found you! Evan said you vanished, we've all been worried—"

Why can't I control my hands or my lips or anything? No words I want to say come out. Instead, it's like my limbs have a hive mind of their own, because I hurl myself forward and Yusei topples over.

I feel like a spectator in my own body. A tiny voice trapped in the back of my head while I watch my hand curl around his throat.

Whatever's in me, influencing me, starts to draw out my power. I feel like I'm screaming, banging on some invisible window in my own mind, while I watch myself Waste at him. His lips start losing color before they suddenly turn red and there's blood crawling down his nose, down both corners of his mouth. I'm breaking him, and I can't stop it.

He's trying to mouth ' _Silvan_ ', I think. My hand reaches to run over his pale, bloodied lips, as if to feel the sound of a beautiful, dying boy choking on my name.

The purple glow—I realize it's coming from _me_. From my arm, and it's casting a haunting, sallow sort of light on his face. I feel blood running down my nose; I've Wasted for too long, but I don't stop, and he's still choking. He's dying, I'm killing him, I'm screaming and screaming but nothing will come out of my mouth—

When I snap awake, I'm still screaming.

"Huh, I didn't expect that to be so easy!" A voice says. "...can you shut up? Nobody is going to hear you down here."

"Wh—" my face is wet with tears. My hands are up above my head, tied—no, _shackled_ together. "W-What the _fuck_!"

"Gotta love that family resemblance. Though, for obvious reasons, I prefer your brother. It's nothing personal."

I try to blink away the darkness. "K-Kiryu?"

"The very flesh and bone. Mostly bone. But that's unimportant." His voice comes closer. "Poor thing, you look like a kicked puppy. That was for my entertainment, not yours, though, so I'm sure you'll get over it."

"W-What?" I stutter.

"You're very bad at understanding your own emotions, and that was obvious from the start. But, oh wow, is it pleasant to watch a clueless little thing like you kill your own silly infatuation."

"I-I don't know what that means! What was that?" I swallow what tastes like bile. "W-What did I do?!"

"In real life? Nothing, regrettably. Your nightmare, my daydream, but same difference. I was bored, that's all."

"I-I don't know what you're talking about!"

"Yes, we've established that."

"Where am I?!"

"Our cave-sweet-cave," he says. "Located right in scenic Nuclear Wasteland. Don't be so frightened, my coworkers and I don't bite unless you're a Signer. Or unless you ask us to."

I don't know if he's being sarcastic, or if he's just this… I don't know, eccentric? I try to take a few breaths to calm myself down. The tears will dry out. I'm in a bad situation. I have to pick and choose how to handle it in a way that's actually going to work. Crying won't help me. I try to compile a mental list for myself including what I should do.

After taking a moment to gather myself and my courage, I ask, "...why am I in chains?"

"We can't have you escaping, obviously. That would just ruin the ride. Letting you go is also not marked on my calendar for a few days."

"Well, sorry to fucking dash your plans, but you need to let me go!"

"Oh, look at you, already playing the game. I was afraid it would take you much longer to put on your brave face." I hear his footsteps getting closer. "You get to stay here until your brother dearest comes to get you. But, don't worry, we'll take good care of you. Mint on your pillow and everything."

Okay. Okay. Motivation, we've got that now. Questions seem to work so far. "You're… you're using _me_ to lure him here?"

"Why don't you tell me what other choice I had? He refused to come on his own. And I can't save him from Rudger if he won't trouble himself to give the better me a chance."

 _Save him from Rudger_. Who is that? The name sounds familiar.

"Y-You think _this_ is better?" I squeak.

"It's better than prison, Little Levine. And, the way I see it, here, I get my payback for what your Yusei did to me."

"You keep referencing that," I remark. "Yusei said he did nothing to you. _Evan_ said that you killed somebody."

"Yusei is a rotten bastard and a traitor, and my Evan can only be a bit gullible."

"So you _didn't_ kill anybody?"

"Oh, no, he was only hospitalized. But the intent was there!"

"You're… You're a sick fuck."

"Scathing."

"Even if you just tried, you deserved the Detention Center!" I say. "You don't deserve my brother!"

"There aren't many people who do deserve him."

"He loves you, you sick fucking psychopath," I say. "He doesn't deserve this from you. What you've become, to him, it's the opposite of what you once were and you have no idea how devastated he is because of that. You're everything he wants to fight against now, do you have any idea how hard it is for him to reconcile what he feels with this? With _you_?"

"You tell me something." His voice is much, much graver now. Much more serious. "That little redheaded psychic that loves you so dearly, and Yusei who thinks he owes you a life debt, how do you think they would feel if you became like me?"

"I would rather _die_ ," I say through gritted teeth.

"Thanks for offering your consent." His teeth glint in the low light. "Unfortunately, I have no plans to make you one of us." A pause. "Not yet, at least. I'll admit that it would be so delicious to send you, shiny, new, and chock full of dark energy, to go rip them both limb from limb. But the psychic isn't my fight, and I can't make my bait obsolete before I make my catch, can I?"

"I-I won't do that. If I die, I'll stay dead. You'll kill me for nothing."

"Yes, keep telling yourself that. Once your brother's joined us, you'll have no choice but to follow in his stead."

"He wouldn't. You'd just be killing somebody you love," I say. "No coming back. But the fact that you still care about him must mean that there's something human left in you, no matter how small that something is."

"These days, is there ever anything human left in any of us?" Kiryu sighs. "And I am still allowed to feel despite the state I'm in now. As a matter of fact, I feel far too much."

"H-He would forgive you," I attempt. "They all would, Yusei and Evan, they would forgive you if you just stopped now. If you went back to them, they would take you despite it all."

"I have no desire to go back to Yusei as if he bore anything for me besides ill will," Kiryu scoffs. "...besides, even if I wanted to, I couldn't. This deal comes with my life."

I try to remember the things Goodwin said about the Dark Signers. The things Evan surmised. "...right. _Right_. They beat you, you lose your mark, you die, is that it? It's not like the Signers, who just have their marks. You got yours because you died, and it's the only thing keeping you alive. So you _have_ to do what it says."

"...maybe you are smarter than you look," he muses.

"Listen, my declarative and episodic memory might be shit, but my semantic memory could take yours out back and beat it to death with a stick."

"What a funny thing you are. Humor must run in the family. You're already so much like him."

"Don't compare me to him for the sake of your sick fantasies," I say. "If Evan is all you're going to chat over, then I'm not going to participate. I refuse to help you do or say anything else in his name when he doesn't want anything to do with you."

It's a bad, _bad_ lie. But if Kiryu believes that Evan won't come for me, or doesn't care about him, maybe he'll have no further use for me. Maybe he'll unshackle me, at the very least.

"Oh, but Silvan," he says serenely, "don't you want your brother to be happy?"

"Yes," I say thinly. "And it's very clear now that his happiness won't come with whatever you are. Don't keep lying to yourself and hoping he'll come here, because he won't. You think you're more important than you are." I don't know if he can see me—or anything—in this darkness, but I turn my head away for emphasis.

"...hm. You're no fun." I hear the banging of metal as something slides shut. "Call me when you start to starve."

 _Start to starve_ , oh that's wonderful. I didn't ever think not being able to eat much would come in handy for anything besides being skinny and weak-boned, but I guess it'll help me now. I want nothing from Kiryu, especially not if he's going to use me to get to my brother.

I start trying to comb through what options I have. I have no backpack and no duel disk, so supplies of any kind are out of the question. If nobody took it from me, my cards should still be in the pouch slung on my belt, but I can barely move to try and figure it out. I don't even think I'm wearing my jacket.

Otherwise, wherever I am is hopelessly dark. This kind of darkness will take my eyes forever to get used to, if there's even enough light in here for that to be possible. Judging by the metal sound from a few moments ago, I can bet that I'm probably in something like a cage. And the shackles on my hands are light, albeit a bit clunky, but they feel pretty thick. I don't know what metal they're made of, or if they're rusted enough for me to try to snap. I could try to Waste them open, or Waste the lock apart, but I'd have to see my own hands for that to work. I can't Waste something I can't see.

I-I… I could try to Expel something. But I don't know how to pull out anything besides what happened in the basement. I don't know if I even have anything in me besides _that_. And releasing a burst of electricity with metal all around me is probably the worst idea I could try out.

I won't be able to do anything if I can't see. That much, I know for sure. And I certainly won't get anything done if I panic.

I just have to stay calm, and… I don't know, hope somebody comes to get me. Or hope my eyes focus enough for me to Waste my shackles off. If I escaped Arcadia, I can escape this too.

But I had _help_ then. Gods, I hope _somebody_ comes for me. Just maybe not my brother.

I sit there in the dark for a really long time, blinking repeatedly and shutting my eyes for a few moments before I open them again, waiting for my eyes to get a clue and make it so I can at least see some shapes and shadows. Gods I wish seeing in the dark was a subclass.

"...you're littler than I thought you'd be," a new voice suddenly says.

I flinch so hard, my back jars against the wall. At least I sensed Kiryu coming and going the first couple of times; the woman this voice belongs to spoke without giving me any warning she was there.

"W-What's that supposed to mean?" I ask, trying not to show how unnerved I am.

"I had heard that you'd been with Arcadia your whole life long. I suppose I expected you to be older."

My chest feels like it's icing over. "...I-I was kidnapped. I didn't go there of my own free will."

"Oh?"

"Only—only eight years."

" _Only_ ," the voice repeats. "You were kidnapped, and yet you stayed."

"I have no memory of anything before," I remark. "It's not like I had any idea of where to go. What's all this to you, anyways?"

"Hmph. I suppose if you're innocent, I have no use for you. Kyosuke is a moron for bringing you here."

"I mean, I agree with you," I say, "but what do you mean? _Innocent_?"

"You bear no guilt, no hand in our plans or the Signers'. You're of absolutely no use. Yet, here you are. And how surprisingly sane you seem."

"I'm shackled to a wall and I can't see an inch in front of my own nose," I admit. "Being anything but sane isn't going to change that."

"Complacency. The sign of a trained prisoner."

"Could you do me a favor? And _shut_ _up_ , possibly?"

"...perhaps not totally complacent, then. Though I had assumed a psychic would have no difficulty breaking those chains."

"Yeah, psychics don't work that way."

"You'll have to excuse me, then. Only my brother received that gift, I didn't know much about it before one of _yours_ stole him from me."

Oh. A psychic brother? "You… You must be Misty."

Velvet laughter reverberates off of the walls. "I've been on Aki Izayoi's lips, then."

"She spoke of you. Yeah. She told me that you think she killed your brother."

"I'm not stupid," Misty snaps. "I've seen Aki Izayoi and the things she can do. The blood of my family is on her hands alone."

"Aki is my friend, I know she'd never kill anybody."

"My only family, my precious Toby, is dead because that creature can't control her carnivorous impulses."

"You have no reason to believe me," I urge, "but I know Aki didn't kill… T-Toby. I know her, and she's never killed anyone, despite what you may think. I'm not saying I don't understand you or your anger, I just think your lust for revenge is ill-aimed. I think a different one of you killed the person who was really responsible."

"You're right," she replies flatly, "I don't have a single reason to believe you. The fact that you would call yourself 'friends' with a murderous witch makes the thought of believing you impossible."

"Don't call her that," I demand.

"I will call her what I like, complacent girl. I hope Kyosuke frees you in time to see me take her life as my trophy, and you will see your 'friend' is nothing but a liar."

"If you ever loved your brother, you'll call psychics as they are. He was one of us and whatever bad things you say in the name of our kind means that you apply them to him, too."

"You should shut your mouth before I tear open this gate and claim your life too, _witch_."

"You know what? Just fucking try it! If I can feel you, I can fight you, and I'm not afraid to die, so I win either way!" I reach out, forward, toward where her voice has been coming from, and Waste as hard as I can. The resulting 'bang' against the metal sounds like a gunshot. "Did you come here to try to intimidate me, or something? Pry about Arcadia? Guess what, I've been in worse situations than this! Just _try_ to come do anything to me!"

"Wretched, _stupid_ creature!" Something rattles against the metal on the other side of the room; like she kicked at the cell bars.

"When you meet your brother's killer in Hell," I call, not sure if she's still there, "tell him _Cipher_ sent you!"

There's no answer, so I'm guessing that I sent her stomping off.

It's a good thing, too; that could've been bad. I neglected to say that she could probably scare me into submission with one of those giant Immortals. Though, the fact that she didn't open the cage and try to actually do anything to me gives me a few good assumptions about the situation I'm in.

First, Kiryu could have cut some compromise with 'Rudger', or whoever the fuck is in charge around here, to try to use me for something. So that none of the other Dark Signers would touch me, maybe. Second, Misty could be all bark and no bite. She could just be in this looking to kill her brother's murderer, and that's all.

Third? She just didn't have the means to get the door open. Which would be both sad and fucking hilarious, that metal bars are the only thing keeping me alive.

What she said about me, though, about complacency and being a prisoner, did hurt. I was complacent in Arcadia. I didn't have a way to leave, but even when I did I probably wouldn't have left without Seria urging me to. At least, here, I'm fighting. I don't know these people, these new captors, which makes it easier to stand up to them. I can hold my ground against people I don't know, against abilities I know nothing about. It was a different story with Divine and Arcadia, with being trapped and the constant possibility of something horrible at every turn I took.

I hope what I said about her brother sticks with her, though. If there's anything I'm right about, it's that. Divine _had_ to have killed him. And bearing all this ill will for Aki, calling her names she and plenty of other psychics hate, is only going to hurt Misty worse. She can't wage war on psychics while forgetting that her brother was one, too.

I find that I'm a little winded from Wasting so hard at a literal wall of metal, so I lie my head back against the wall and shut my eyes for a second to catch my breath. I'm not bleeding, I don't think, which is a good sign.

I peek open, trying to peer through the darkness, at the same time I can hear Kiryu again. "Whew! That went _so_ well!"

"What the fuck do you want now?" I retort.

"You might want to remember where you are. _Cipher_."

"You want me here to lure my brother here. There's no way you'll do anything to me, or he'll kill you himself," I say. " _Kyosuke_."

He heaves a sigh that turns into a groan. "Ah, how I wish it was as easy to deal with you as it is to deal with my petulant cohorts."

"That's not realistic, I'm not stupid enough to want to keep living after finally being allowed to die."

"How rude. I wasn't going to go through all of that pain in dying for it to end with nothing, you know."

"Life itself is pain, you hopeless freak. Actually _wanting_ to continue it would be a nightmare."

"A nightmare, indeed," he says; his laugh is devoid of any real humor.

"Ever going to tell me what you're doing here?"

"Waiting for you to say _please_."

"You knocked me out and shackled me because you can't handle rejection and you're not tall enough to successfully kidnap my brother, and you want me to be _polite_?"

"There's that insufferable logic again." I can hear the creak of metal as the door, presumably, opens. "While I was listening to you and the _lovely_ Misty Lola attempt to out-bitch each other, I was considering the implications of keeping you here without truly allowing you my side of the story. I suppose I can't be very successful in keeping both of you without having at least one of you on my side."

"Oh, good luck with that."

"Why, thank you for the vote of confidence."

A hand cold enough to make me jump out of my skin grabs onto my arm. Suddenly, I'm on my feet, and though I feel my hands still as good as tied together, I'm not sitting in the dark anymore.

I don't really recognize where we are, but the dark cloudy sky and the way the buildings along the cracked road crumble in places, I think it's safe to assume that we're somewhere in the semi-habitable part of Satellite.

"W-What's your play?" I stutter as I try to blink through the change in light. " _Teleportation_? Or _what_?"

"The simple answer is that the others and I share the terribly handy tool," he answers, "of illusion. You've fallen for it twice before, silly girl."

"T-Twice?"

"That wonderful show I made for you, where I got to watch you kill your dear darling _friend_ Yusei? And my light show, in the B.A.D., honestly, I thought that one would be obvious."

"B-But… how did you just vanish?! In Martha's house?"

"Illusion. It's all a facade, Silvan. Not a lick of it except my duel and my housecall has been real. I have to thank you, truly, I've been able to use it so much more often thanks to this little rerouting of my plans."

"Okay, all right. Fuck. I don't care anymore."

"Your short attention span is boring."

"If that's the worst insult you can come up with, I think I'm in a pretty good spot. Why don't you and your presumably _extensive_ attention span explain what the _fuck_ we're doing somewhere in the middle of Satellite?"

"You smarty. We're going to go see where things went wrong."

"Uh. What?"

"Just shut up, and follow me."

Even here, in this illusion, I can't move my hands. But I could in the one where I was killing Yusei. I guess my mobility depends on Kiryu, then. I trail helplessly behind him down the road, toward who-knows-where. It smells like it's going to start raining.

"...can I ask a question? Is that allowed?"

"If you condescend me, you won't be allowed to speak."

"Wow, jeez. I don't even know where to start on why that's immature of you," I scoff. "I was only going to ask why your mark looks like that."

"Which?" He retorts.

"The—the criminal one. I know about the Nazca Lines, I don't care about that one. I've just only seen the ones on people's' faces be yellow."

"When I received it, it was yellow. It turned this color when _I_ turned."

"It just… did that?"

"More or less. The power of my patron, I suppose. But there are those unlike me who bear marks like this, as well. The red is given to prisoners marked for death."

"...I'm sorry, what the fuck?"

"You assumed the Detention Center didn't have a death row? Not as smart as you think you are, then," he snorts. "When you're one of us, even if you didn't have a mark beforehand, you certainly get one."

"Follow-up question. Why do these gods, or whatever, need people to fight their battles? If they're supposed to be… you know, _gods_?"

"They have no physical forms to fight on their own. Even if they did, they would wipe out the population of the planet with their battle. There would be no one left to bow to them."

"Really? Because I could swear you people have a goal to wipe out _millions_ of innocent people who may or may not be perfectly able to genuflect for giant, self-indulgent monsters."

"I don't make the decisions. I signed a contract, I follow it. In this body, I don't need anything normal people do, especially not sympathy, so whether or not people die is no concern of mine. My job is simply to be the vessel, and in return I get Yusei's head on a platter."

"That _certainly_ answers my question," I retort.

"Remember what I said about condescending me, now!"

At that, I stop talking. If Kiryu's going to eventually shut me up, I'm going to go out to the best insult I can possibly think of.

It starts to rain as we reach an area where the buildings are a little taller and have signs of people trying to rebuild them with whatever they can find. Probably to try and make these places livable.

"We're here," Kiryu says thinly. "Giving exposition would be useless. You know the story."

"Um, yeah. You could definitely say that."

"Hush." He points. Lights flash on in the distance, and I have to squint through them. From one of the buildings not too far from us, two big shadows carry a struggling figure out into the rain, towards those lights. Now that I'm looking at them a little harder, the beams look like they're coming from headlights.

I creep closer, trying to make sense of what I'm seeing, and realize that I'm watching two Security agents drag Kiryu away. He's shouting and struggling, and then suddenly from that same building, I see Yusei's silhouette fly out into the rain. He shouts after Kiryu, but his voice cuts off suddenly as another Security appears, one that looks like they also came from inside the building.

He claps his hand on Yusei's shoulder—as if… I don't know, _thanking_ him.

Then there's my brother, who comes out of that same building, and he's shouting, too. Kiryu's name, and "no, no, no" over and over again. He tries to run for him and the Securities, but… but Yusei grabs onto him. Holds him back. Kiryu gets shoved into a car, and the lights disappear into the mist.

"Why don't you tell me," the real Kiryu, the present-day one, says from beside me, "what that looked like?"

I swallow. "I don't… want to."

"What you said about me, I consider already, some days. There are days when I do think I deserved to go to the Detention Center, and days when I say 'fuck it, somebody deserved to die that day,' because my ambitions used to be at least a _little_ bigger than myself and a perfect challenge. If my friends and I controlled Satellite, I used to think, we could make it better for everybody. Better than the Bureau did. But I want you to tell me what just happened."

It looked like Yusei turned him in. Held my wreck of a brother back from trying to get to the person he adored, _still_ adores, despite all he's done.

"Go ahead. I want to know what you think that was."

"It looked like," I say, swallowing, "you have something to be upset about."

"...now that wasn't so difficult. Was it?"

Satellite melts around us, back into darkness. The cold hand on my arm releases, but doesn't quite leave. The shackles holding my numb arms up over my head clatter down onto my lap.

Kiryu says, "I'll let you decide what to do next." His voice starts to get further and further away, down some hall somewhere, as he says, "The cell door's open, if you care."

I—I sit there. Like Cipher. _Complacent_. He left the door open, and yet here I remain. Confused and angry and still hoping that my brother isn't the one to come get me and see me trying to figure out if Kiryu is a liar, or if I'm just really, _really_ stupid.


	27. Devoured

Evan never gave details about what happened that day, when the Securities came for Kiryu. I assumed it was too painful to talk about, so I didn't ask. I never knew what led up to it, besides what Kiryu had done.

I sit there in the dark, open cage and mull it all over.

I have no plans to play apologist for Kiryu, especially after he admitted to me that he tried to kill someone, but that scene put a sour taste in my mouth. In just the week I've been outside of Arcadia, I've learned how cruel the Bureau is to Satellites. How they'll come after anyone, how it's like an inborn instinct for people here to just run from them. And while I certainly don't think killing is anywhere near the answer to make things better for people in Satellite, I think I can see what Kiryu's intentions were. Whether or not his end goal justifies his means of getting there, I see what he wanted.

They had to have known that Kiryu getting arrested most certainly spelt death for him. I can't imagine anybody at the Bureau wanting anything less for a Satellite who attempted to kill one of their officers. Could they have gotten him help? Could they have saved him the pain? Saved my brother the isolation?

No, not _they_. Yusei. I don't know where Crow and Jack filter into this, but they didn't seem to be there when Kiryu got dragged away.

I was told Yusei and Evan both adored Kiryu. I want to believe that Yusei is good, that he wouldn't turn a friend into corrupt police instead of trying to get him real, actual help. I want to believe that what Kiryu's illusory ability showed me was exactly that: an illusion. Not a truth, not a memory.

But, the more I sit here and think about it, the more sense it starts to make. Kiryu's anger makes sense. Evan's anger, too, makes sense; not only did I see Yusei hold him back that first time, in the vision, but I recall Evan telling me that he wanted to go to Neo Domino to look for Kiryu. To see if Kiryu was there. Why would Yusei tell my brother no, tell him to stay, if he wasn't at least a little bit guilty? How much does Evan even know about what happened?

Beyond those things, though? Nothing else makes any sense. Yusei just doesn't seem like the type of person to sell his friends out. He offered to take me out of Arcadia because he knew Evan would want me. His first and only concern after getting back to Satellite was helping Rally and his other friends. He begged me and Crow not to follow him to where he dueled Kiryu because he was afraid we'd get hurt. After all I've gone through with him already, this just doesn't seem right. It seems so, _so_ out of place.

Though, I also seem to remember Evan and Martha mentioning a change in Yusei after Kiryu was taken. That he became more stoic, more serious. As if something that happened, whether it be his fault or not, forced him into becoming a different person. I thought it might be parting with Kiryu, just in general. But maybe it's what sent him away. Maybe he made the mistake of being the cause of one friend leaving, so he vowed never to let it happen again.

I don't know how long I spend mulling it over, but eventually I can feel Kiryu coming back. It's that specific, foreboding sense of dread that he brings with him that isn't hard to distinguish from the very bland sense of dread that comes from sitting by myself in a pitch black dungeon. A few seconds later, I hear his voice.

"Still in here? I could have sworn I took those shackles off."

"I'm having some issues," I remark. "Don't worry about it."

"...difficult, when you figure out that your 'friends' aren't the people you believe them to be, is it?"

"I don't know what I believe," I say.

"Fair. I thought I would come to let you know that our battle is beginning."

"Battle?" I parrot.

"Your Signers have split up; it's time for me and the others to face them and earn our retribution. I'm going to go meet Yusei for a rematch, and this time, his faulty duel runner won't save him from me."

Yusei must have beat the first Dark Signer that showed up at Martha's house. I mean, I assume. "...you came to tell me you're leaving to go kill him?"

"I came to ask if you cared to join me," he says plainly. "I have no doubts that Evan will be there."

"I thought you were waiting for him to come here."

"I'm impatient."

"I've noticed." I rub at my wrists. "So, what? Am I supposed to be your cheerleader or something?"

"I'm offering to let you leave, you know. You might be a little more grateful."

"...you know what? I think I'm going to stay."

For the first time, surprise colors his voice. "...how interesting."

"If you're really going to pretend to be in my corner," I say, "Maybe tell my brother that I'm okay. And an apology or several might help, while you're at it."

"I'll keep that in mind. Though I'm curious as to why you won't be telling him yourself."

"Unless you intend to lose, I assume he'll be coming back here with you anyways."

"Fingers crossed, of course. You're a curious thing, turning down freedom."

"I won't question your intentions anymore. So don't question mine."

"Hm." I can hear his footsteps moving the other direction down the hall. "I'll be right back, then."

"...what if you don't come back?" I ask. "Just out of _curiosity_."

"I will," Kiryu scoffs.

"But what if?"

"There are no what ifs. I'll be back."

"Fine!" I shout as that foreboding essence grows further and further away. "Let me know if staying here in the dark gets me a ticket into your disaster shelter club!"

Even though he doesn't answer, I wait to stand up until I definitely can't sense him anymore. Then I wobble onto my feet and try to shake the blood back into my numb legs.

Kiryu having some relevance for his anger toward Yusei doesn't change the position we're in. It doesn't change the fact that Kiryu sold his soul for another shot at life, and that if Yusei dies, a lot more innocent people will too. Of course I'm going to bring this up to Yusei as soon as I see him. Of course I still don't know whether or not I've been lied to, and of course the whole endeavor makes me feel absolutely horrible. But I can't let emotion drive my reaction to such a huge, potentially bad situation.

Take away Yusei and Kiryu and my brother entirely, and the world is still in danger. The people I care about could suddenly lose their lives. I could lose mine before it's even begun.

So, uh… go sit uncomfortably through a ride somewhere with Kiryu to inevitably start a conflict between me and my friends, or stay here to try and roam this wasteland and see if I can find out more about the Dark Signers? The answer feels obvious.

I feel my way out of the cage; there most certainly isn't any light anywhere near here, because my eyes can't even pick up on faint shapes. That probably won't be good for me; I really hope I don't run into any more Dark Signers that I can't sense.

As soon as I'm out of the cage, I feel around for which way the hall goes. The wall in front of me, I estimate, is a space of maybe five feet around me, and I feel only open air to my left and right. I recall that Kiryu and Misty both seemed to come in from the right; Kiryu went away, I think, to the left.

I steel myself, put out my hand to feel for walls, and go right.

There are five Dark Signers, just like there are five Signers. Kiryu and Misty, so far, have had connections to Yusei and Aki, though Misty's connection to Aki seems more like a six-degrees-of-separation thing. I wonder who the rest of them will be. What standoffish revenge stories the other three will have for a self-obsessed snob, a twelve-year-old, and our mystery fifth Signer?

I still find it hard to believe that we've seen nothing of the fifth Signer so far. I can remember bits and pieces of conversations with Yanagi, things Goodwin said, about how the Crimson Dragon would appear if all five Signers were present. It appeared at the Fortune Cup, so where was the fifth? Goodwin doesn't expect anyone to believe that he really doesn't know who it is, does he? I mean, come on. He somehow found two specific Satellites, an off-the-grid psychic, and a literal child in a sea of something like five million people. How hard could it have been to find the last person? Whoever they may be?

I continue to feel my way through the darkness, until, at long last, I see a dim glow up ahead. It's very, very faint—it could even be my imagination—but I keep walking toward that dim pink aura in the distance until it's large enough that I know it isn't my imagination.

I come out into a huge cavern bathed in mauve light, where a structure like a big gazebo stands, shooting its metal arms down into the cave floor. There's somebody up there, and it certainly doesn't feel like Kiryu or what I felt just before the window shattered in Martha's house.

I start tentatively up the steps, blinking away the shapes that the new light brings into my peripheral vision, and find myself standing on this flat, almost altar-looking place. Further ahead, I see the floor stretch out into a bridge splitting into four directions like a compass rose.

A dark shape sits out on the bridge, and I creep out toward it, trying not to look out over the edge of it at what lies below: the source of the candy-colored light. A seemingly endless ocean of pure, bright color. Looking at it makes my heart begin to race.

The figure, I find, is hunched over and… crying? It's the little, skinny shape of a girl who probably can't be much older than I am. But she's wearing Dark Signer robes, black and patterned with orange tribal-looking symbols, not much different from Kiryu's blue-streaked robes.

I wonder what kind of character this one will be.

"Are you okay?" I ask softly.

She stiffens and looks up to me. The first thing I'm struck by is the sight of her eyes. Unlike Kiryu's, the whites of her eyes are… well, they're actually white. She has that bloodred Detention Center scar on her cheek, a little arrow beneath her eye. She's no more than me. No more than a girl who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"W-Who are you?" She stutters.

"Kiryu brought me here," I say. "As leverage, I guess, to get somebody else to come too."

"Oh." She rubs at her eyes. "That's horrible. I'm sorry."

"You didn't choose to be like this," I ask, "did you?"

She shakes her head wildly. "N-No, I just… I just didn't want to die."

"Of course not." I sink down, legs crossed, to sit beside her. "My name is Silvan."

"I'm Carly."

"How did you get here? Like... Dark Signer central? If you don't mind me asking?"

"I was… I was snooping, I'll admit it. Somebody I care a lot about is doing something really dangerous right now, and I just… I wanted to help him. Forget that I'm in danger now, too… I-I used to be a reporter, so I thought if I could find something relevant to him and maybe get it published, it would help. You know, draw what he was looking for out into the open."

"...where were you 'snooping'?" I ask. I've never met a reporter, but I used to hear Divine gripe about how annoying he thought they were. How they would do anything 'for a story'. "Did you break into the Bureau?"

"No… I'm such an idiot." She puts her face in her hands. "I-I broke into the Arcadia Movement."

"Y-You… You did _what_?!"

"I thought I was being really quiet, okay? And I heard a bunch of rumors that psychics can't detect you unless you're one of them. I thought I could get in and out super easily."

It may have a been a horrible, stupid idea, but she did do her research. She thought no one would be able to sense her, and she could be right. But I have no analytic knowledge of Divine's abilities, of course, so there's no guarantee.

"Their leader, he… he tried to duel me to punish me for trespassing. I don't remember what happened during it. It was like I blacked out. W-When I woke up afterward, I was just… on the roof. In these clothes. Somebody else, another of us, Misty, took me here, and… and I have all of these voices in my head, telling me that I have to go kill, and I can't shut them up…" her voice fades into a breathy squeak.

There are so many components to that confession, but I'm lingering on just one of them. " _You_ killed him. Didn't you?"

"W-Who?" She asks.

"Divine," I say. "The leader of Arcadia. There were two Lines etched over that building, and Divine died in all of it… it was you, wasn't it?"

"I can't remember," she urges. "I-I don't want to. I just want this all to stop. I don't want to kill anybody else."

Divine killed this poor girl—and she killed him back.

"Can I tell you something?" I ask.

Carly nods.

"I… I have a _friend_ , who was in the Arcadia Movement. She was trapped there for a long time, by Divine. He wasn't kind to her at all. She managed to escape not long before you and Misty were there. And she probably would have gone back if it wasn't for you. There was no way he'd stop kidnapping psychics until he died."

"I'm… I'm glad that helps somebody, then."

"I'm sorry it had to be you," I tell her. "It doesn't change the gravity of what happened to you. But what you did mattered. To my friend, and… and to me."

"I appreciate the sentiment." She laughs a little, but there isn't much happiness in the sound.

"I am sorry. You didn't choose to be part of any of this. I-I don't know how to help you. Any of you, actually."

"The voices want me to win. To kill the person I love," she says. "I've died once already. I know the only way to save anyone else is to go back to nothing."

"There… there has to be some other way than that. Some other way than all of you just dying. That just isn't fair."

"None of it is." Carly shakes her head. "I get to see him one last time, I think. And hope that he has enough mercy in him to kill me. Every time I disobey the voices, I get headaches… bad ones. So the only way I can get out of this is to lose truthfully."

 _Him_? The person she loves, I assume, but… "What's he like? The person you love?"

A little smile brightens her face almost immediately. Like just the first thought of this person makes the fear and the remorse I just saw on her flutter away. "Cranky," she says. "Really, _really_ cranky. And stubborn and… so careful. And quiet. I've only seen him smile once, just a little, but I swear it was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."

"That's what brought you back, then? You loved him too much, enough to put you here?"

"I… I don't know. I don't know why they picked me. The voices, I mean. I just know that they want me to kill him."

Fuck. That's all I need. "...being head over heels for Jack Atlas sounds like more of a curse than a blessing."

Her face turns bright pink. "H-How did you—"

"Context clues. And I know the Signers—I know Jack. Not well, but I know him. And I know that you never would have become a Dark Signer unless the spirits that resurrected you thought you had something to do, _specifically_ , with one of them."

"I… I know they're using me to get to him. They're saying that, if I win, they can bring him back for me. That we could be together that way. But something else in me knows better."

"To be honest," I tell her, "I didn't think he had the capacity to love or get anybody to love him back."

"He's callous," she admits, "but he isn't cruel. And he knows what he's done. He's afraid to show he cares about it."

"...how much do _you_ know?"

She seems to know, immediately, what I'm referring to. That's interesting. "No specifics. I didn't want to hurt him by making him tell me. But I know he hurt a lot of his friends, and he knows he did, but he's afraid that there's nothing he can do to fix it. Even though he cares about them. He's afraid that he's past the point of no return."

"Were you close?"

"I don't know," she admits. "Just because I feel something for him doesn't mean he feels something for me, too."

Oh fuck. That's heartbreaking. "...for what it's worth, if you think he's that wonderful and if he's opened up to you enough to let you figure all that out, then I think you may be closer than you believe."

"Hm." Carly shakes her head. The light below us glimmers off of her sleek dark hair. "Good advice. You sound like you love somebody, too."

"Ah… I did. Once," I say. "But I was never enough for him. That's a me problem, though. To be dealt with another time, maybe, in another life."

"Another life," she repeats. "Just for the sake of where we are, and what I am… don't say that."

"All right," I answer, even though I'm ankle-deep in my third life. "Is everyone else… gone?"

"Everyone else," she parrots. "Yes… Yes, I think so. Rudger called on us to meet him somewhere, to see the Signers… we were all here for a little while, but I think I may be all that's here now. Me and Rudger."

"Rudger is… your leader?"

"Yes, he carries Uru," she replies. "He was the first one. That's what I've been told. After that came Demak…"

"Demak?"

"He carries Cusillu. He has some quarrel with spirits, and with whatever Signer protects them… I don't know much about him. He rarely speaks to anyone but Rudger."

A Signer who protects spirits? That doesn't sound familiar. Either this 'Demak' confirms the existence of the fifth Signer somewhere… or Ruka is much more than she appears.

"Then it was Misty—she carries Ccarayhua."

"Yeah, I've uh… I've met her."

"I met her a few times before I knew she was a Dark Signer," Carly says. "She was a model. A beautiful, famous one. Not that she isn't still beautiful, but… people get less beautiful the colder they get. To me, at least."

"I get it."

"Then Kiryu, he carries Ccapac Apu. He's very… loud."

"Loud?"

"Angry. All the time. It's like it never stops."

"He seemed very mellow when I spoke to him," I say. Though that might be because of my brother.

"How nice," she exhales. "Then me. I carry Aslla Piscu. Then, I think… I think Rudger brought in somebody else. I don't know him. But I know he carries Chacu Challhua."

"So there are… six of you?" I ask.

"Soon to be less." Carly shakes her head. "Rudger pulled a trick to keep himself from losing to Yusei Fudo, but… it won't be long until he comes here. It won't be long until they start to beat us. One by one."

"You don't believe you'll win?" I ask. Kiryu seemed very confident. But Carly… is it because she's more self-aware? Or what?

"I-I… Ugh…" She presses the heels of her hands against the sides of her head. I reach out to her instinctively, concerned for this girl that became a statistic documenting the blood on Divine's hands, this girl that loves and sees the good in the most narcissistic person I think I've ever met, and is only technically alive because of it. She's given so much to me without knowing more than just my name. Maybe because she's scared? Alone? She didn't choose this.

I realize that, if Carly is so much like me, maybe the others are, too. We're all just kids who've been fucked with without our permission.

I wish I said a real goodbye to Kiryu before he left. I don't think I'm going to see him again. But I feel for him and I know he deserved so much more than he got. He deserved help and life, and my brother loved him so much that I felt it when I held him, crying, on the floor up in his room.

I hope Kiryu gets a moment with my brother, maybe. I hope he gets to make amends. I hope Misty learns the truth about her brother, wherever that truth might live. I hope Carly gets something, _anything_ , with Jack.

I wonder, if those gods my friends are all being forced to fight for ever considered what waging war through humans would do to those humans. If they're just too thoughtless and omnipotent to care for the microcosms of humanity. Or the kind of pain it creates to pit friends and lovers against each other.

Carly, I think, is knee deep in one of those headaches—the creature with its hold on her, maybe, disapproving of her lack of faith—and when she looks back at me her eyes look like Kiryu's. They're no longer warm or sad, or even human.

She swings herself up onto her feet and says, curtly, "I have to go."

The thing must be making her go find Jack, if the others have been sent off to find my friends.

"Goodbye, Carly," I say. "I hope I see you again."

She doesn't answer, she just leaves. But I'm glad I got to give a goodbye to _someone_.

I turn my eyes downward, toward the sea of light beneath the bridge. Whorls of pink, yellow, and green swirl around like little hurricanes. I don't know what it is, but it's pretty. Serene. Too bad it probably isn't serene at all. I have half a mind to believe that nothing in this hole is even the least bit harmless.

I get up off of where I was sitting and keep head forward after a few minutes of sitting. Carly, alone, gave me a lot of information about the other Dark Signers. I just wish there was a way to save them.

Beyond the bridge, I'm back in darkness, the glow of the light sea at my back. This tunnel isn't quite as long as the last, though. Not far into my walk, I see little points of orange light flickering like candle flames. It's only when I get closer do I see that they _are_ candles.

It's a candelabra, actually, sitting smack dab in the middle of a table with all of its chairs pulled out. All except one, really. At the head of the table, there's a hooded silhouette. I assume that it must be Rudger.

"Silvan Levine," Rudger says from the head of the table. "When last we met, you weren't nearly what you are now."

"You know me," I say blankly. I slide into the chair right across from him: one table, two heads.

"Sören and Rei's little girl."

"You knew my parents."

"Two of the greatest minds to ever grace Neo Domino City. They were gone too soon. Tell me, do you take after them?"

"I can't answer that," I say. "I ended up in this spooky place called an orphanage."

"You certainly don't tread as carefully in your words as your father. I think much of your mother lives in you."

"I'm not concerned with living in the past."

"You do not know yourself, then." He leans forward a little. "I sense that you drag the shell of who you once were with you. What a shame the gods did not bring you to us sooner."

"I'm not one of you. And you're fooling yourself if you think I will be."

"You would be of no use to me mimicking the state of a Dark Signer," he states. "Your lust for revenge runs deep enough that you could perhaps shoulder the power of Wiraqocha Rasca if you tried. Yet, you lack the outlet for it. Your subject is out of reach, and the only other thing that bolsters your anger and your hatred so high is… yourself, I think."

"I didn't come here for you to psychoanalyze me."

"Why, then, did you come?"

"I came because I want to know why all of this is happening. I know you and the rest of your Dark Signers are scared, and you're missing something, and that this new form is the only way you could think to remedy that. I want to know if you got to pick, Rudger. If you were allowed to choose."

"You speak as though a new life and a new form is not precisely what makes you stand here before me," he muses. "That the gods did not bring you here in this rebuilt body to attempt to play reconciler."

"A god didn't make my 'new form'," I say. "I did. And right now, it's small. It's barely alive. But I'll build it by myself for as long as it takes until my bones don't feel empty anymore. I don't need a god to tell me who I am. I'll figure it out on my own." I pause. "Did you?"

"Everything that becomes is willed by the gods. Someday, you will understand that all we do is preordained. I did not fight my destiny, because I could not choose it. We inherit the struggles of our forefathers whether or not they are solved, or even close to it, and it falls to us to make it work with what we have before we push it onto our children. Often times, that is the will of the gods. But, not a single thing you or I have done was because of our own choices."

"If you spend your life relying on fate for every move you make, you're going to end up in even more situations like this. Alone and possessed by an ancient demon. If another situation like this one is even possible after the Signers defeat you."

"Perhaps losing was ordained by the gods. But, perhaps, I was also destined to kill he whom Kiryu Kyosuke cannot."

"...you want Yusei's head, too. Why?"

"As I said of it before… we are granted the struggles of our ancestors. And we can choose to end things, or give them to our children."

I scramble all of the pieces together. "Human beings are not struggles. I am not the burden of my parents, and Yusei isn't the continuation of whatever you have against his father."

"Strange, coming from a girl born of hardship. A child in poverty, and then an outlet for experimentation. Now what?"

"Maybe your gods preordained that," I say. "I can't choose where I came from. I can't choose the positions I get put in. But I can choose what to do and how to feel about it."

"Yes, your mother did not believe in fate, either. Just look where it got her."

"You're a bastard. I know Yusei is going to beat you."

"You still wish that pitiful boy victory? I sense you have many mixed feelings, and yet you remain his proponent?"

"I don't know why my friends do the things they do," I tell him. "It's not like I'm not planning on finding out. But Yusei making a bad mistake as a teenager doesn't equate to you killing millions people for the sake of your celestial destiny crusade."

"Often times, our destinies exist purely so that we may contribute to something greater."

"You should stop thinking big and start worrying about yourself."

On the candelabra, one of the flames suddenly flickers out. It's the second highest from the top.

"Pity," Rudger says, rising from his chair. There's a loud 'crash' as he knocks over the chair to his right—my left. "We have fallen to five."

Who, I wonder? Kiryu, Misty, Carly, Demak? Or that fifth that Carly didn't know the name of?

"You are a curious thing, I admit," Rudger continues. "Cursed to take on the burdens of your parents the way that Yusei Fudo was cursed to take on his. You come here on accident, and you stand and roam as if you were one of us. As if your words and actions could never have an impact on what could become of you."

"I'm not afraid to die," I say, for what feels like the hundredth time.

"How shameful, that you are so young and have already learned of fates worse than death."

I feel a sharp pinch on the back of my neck, and on instinct, my hand whips around to smack whatever's there. Whatever bit me.

I feel like I'm seeing through water, suddenly. Rudger says, "I know what is worse, too."


	28. One Day Out

"Father, why won't you call me C?"

"I don't understand why you wish to shorten it."

"I-I… I just… I don't like it."

"You don't like it?"

"T-The way it sounds. I-I don't know. H-How come I can't get a normal name?"

" _Normal_ ," he says, sounding something like disgusted. "You are not normal, Cipher."

"I-I know, but—"

"Don't argue with me," he barks. It makes me go silent. A second later he says, his voice gentler, "What's _my_ name?"

"D-Divine?"

"Do you think that's 'normal'?"

"N-No, not… not really…"

"Then it isn't something you should worry about. Normality is a curse, and because you are unique, it will show in your name. You will _learn_ to like it."

"...O-Okay."

I don't know when that was. How long ago. Everything is always a jumble, every detail, every foggy little memory I find after digging for hours and hours and trying not to lose the bits and pieces I excavate from nearly nothing.

I'm standing in the elevator. I put my hands up, against Yusei's shoulder blades, and hold my breath to stay hidden. Nobody can see me, nobody can see me, nobody can see me.

Suddenly Yusei barrels out of my way—something threw him toward the wall—and Divine grabs onto me by my hair. We're outside now, and I'm screaming and trying to struggle, but no sound comes out of my mouth. Nobody comes after me, because—because why would they? Why does Yusei need to dedicate anything to someone he's just met? Why does Yeager or the Bureau or anyone standing by watching this owe me any help?

Why am I even alive? If what Rudger said about fate and destiny is true, why am I still here? Why did they take my parents, but not me? Why is my purpose to be an object of experimentation?

I'm walking back to Arcadia, arms swinging, _whistling_ , even. My shoulder's wrapped up in bandages because I got a tattoo today. When it's healed, I can't wait to show Aki. It's of roses, and she loves roses. The next day I'm standing in the testing area with a bare torso, begging a doctor not to tell Divine about it. I don't even get to put my shirt back on before I get punished.

Why do good things exist if they're just going to be destroyed? If there is a God, or if there are God _s_ , then why do they stand back and watch terrible things happen? Isn't this supposed to be the world they created? When did they lose control of it?

I'm sixteen and sitting in the dueling ring on the furthest floor beneath the Movement, duel disk already strapped to my arm, waiting for Divine. It's been an hour. Then it's been two. Then there's a cleric telling me that Divine won't be coming today. I give back my duel disk and my cards and trudge to my room to meet a woman called Seria, a woman I've seen around more than once but never really spoken to. She'll be teaching me from now on.

Divine used to say that I was holding out on him. He told me to _feel_ , and only that. Do only what my instincts said. Once I cried after a duel because the pain was too much for me to handle, and he clarified that I could feel, but never cry. Crying was a sign of weakness. No one could ever see me cry. The first time I was punished with the electricity, I bit through my tongue trying to keep the tears from coming out.

Not everyone has good intentions, and that much is true. Some people give in to evil early and are the reason it still persists. Some people give into it later, out of… I don't know, stupidity. Or a lack of anything else.

Last year I took a bottle of melatonin pills out of the medicine shelf in the mess hall; I didn't know they were Aki's, I had no clue somebody as perfect as her had trouble sleeping. I guess somebody saw me take them and told her, or she went looking for them, or… I don't know. The short version is that she caught me trying to take the whole bottle. Even then, I didn't cry. She was too much of Divine to be allowed that little, hidden, shriveled part of me.

I'm—not afraid to die. But I am _afraid_.

'Don't cry' somehow translated to 'don't feel.' Like my own little personal form of protest against Divine, that I could never give him what he wanted, never feel quite enough to be another Aki for him. I would never lose control of my powers, because I would never make them strong enough for him to use. I wasn't useless in the beginning. I _made_ myself useless to make myself invisible.

I had no one and nothing in the beginning but Divine, and so I projected all that I was onto him. Everything I _am_. If no one else wanted me, I told myself, Divine did. At least one person in the world cared whether I lived or died, no matter how callous he was, and that had to be enough for me. I took what I could get. I died that day, when he bequeathed me to Seria.

I hate him for making me love him like that. For making me depend on him. He built me just to destroy me in the end. And I'll never get to repay him for it. I'll never get to learn how to square my shoulders and say _I am not yours_ and tell him that I'm not weak if I cry. He ruined me, and he gets off easy. No carved out criminal mark, no life in prison, no isolated stone walls. He gets to die, he gets the easy way out. And I'm all that's left of him.

" _C_?"

My eyes snap open. I can feel something around my hands getting jostled, fiddled with, until they suddenly fall. The shackles are back. But who took them off this time?

"Ah, hey, I've still got it! Take that, shitty ass padlocks!" The voice laughs. "C? Are you with me, C?"

" _Crow_ ," I breathe.

"Yep, that's my name, don't wear it out. Are you doin' okay, can you stand—"

I throw my arms around him, tears pouring down my cheeks, my whole body shaking like the electricity that lives in my bones is jumping around. "D-Don't _ever_ call me C again, I don't even want to hear that letter by itself _ever_ again!"

"Okay, okay," he says, patting between my shoulder blades. "Yusei mentioned that, but I wanted to make sure it was okay with you before I changed what I called you."

Yusei. _Yusei_. I dig my fingers into Crow's shoulders and draw away from him, even though I can't see his face in this darkness. "D-Did Yusei really turn Kiryu in to Security?!"

"...What?" Crow exclaims. "Did Kiryu get you on that, too?"

"Please tell me it's not the truth!"

"Whoa, all right. Can ya calm down for me? Yusei didn't do anything to Kiryu. When we were in the gang, Kiryu got out of hand and hid out in the middle of the Residential district. He was totally surrounded by Securities. Jack, Yusei, Evan, and I went in to try to convince him to run and get away and lay low until the Bureau stopped looking for him, but he didn't want to. What Yusei _did_ was attempt to tell the Bureau that he was the guy that was killing the Securities. _He_ tried taking the fall for Kiryu, but they found Kiryu first and dragged him off."

"Oh," I sigh, feeling more tears well up in the corners of my eyes. " _Oh._ "

"Are you okay?" He asks. "You're all jumpy and, uh… kinda damp. Are you crying?"

"D-Don't worry about it," I say. "I'm just really happy you're here."

"Thanks. That warms my heart. I didn't expect to find you here, but I'm glad I did." He pulls me onto my feet. "I met up with Yusei and Evan a little while ago, and they said Kiryu took you somewhere. How long have you been here?"

"I-I don't know. What's it look like outside?"

"Well, it's the middle of the goddamn night, if that helps."

"I think I left just after sunset," I say. "I can't remember. I'm… I'm having a tough time."

"Did they just… keep you here?" He asks, guiding me out into what I assume is the corridor. "Locked up?"

"I-It was Kiryu at first," I tell him. "But he didn't keep me for long. Actually, he offered to take me with him to his duel with Yusei."

"Wait, why the _fuck_ did you stay?"

"I-I thought I could find out more about the Dark Signers, maybe," I say. "I-I met three of them, besides Kiryu. Only one of them seemed remotely normal, though. I think they're all being controlled by whatever's marked them."

"You'd win that bet," Crow tells me, still pulling me slowly along. "When Yusei was going at it with Kiryu, Kiryu decided he didn't want to fight anymore. Something took over him and made him try to finish the duel."

"They're… they're the spirits of _something_ , the Nazca Lines, or I don't know," I say. "I watched it happen to one of them. The second she doubted what she was doing out loud, it took her over."

" _Wild_ ," Crow scoffs.

"So," I say in a tiny voice, "is… is Kiryu…"

"Yeah," Crow says softly. "He's gone."

"...did you get to say goodbye?"

"I didn't. Yusei and Evan, though… they got their two seconds."

"...I'm glad they did. Even if it was short."

"Yeah, me too," Crow responds. "I'm going to warn you, though, Evan's probably going to start crying when he sees you. The guy has _not_ been well tonight."

"I-I could have guessed that," I say. "Is he still angry with you?"

"Does the silent treatment count?" Crow laughs a little. "Eh, probably. Evan's a grudge-y guy, though. The second he lets me talk to him, I'll give him all the apologies he wants."

"Is there anything else I've missed?"

"Uh… Hm… well, the 12 year old kicked her Dark Signer's ass before anybody else, so… if I ever get in a fight, I want her on my team."

So that candle… and the chair, with Rudger. That was _Ruka_ winning. I feel a burst of pride.

"I met up with Yusei to take on another guy, someone who was in the Fortune Cup. I feel really bad, that he got mixed up in all of this Dark Signer bullshit, but then again… I mean, we're all mixed up in it."

"Well, yeah."

"Then Yusei took on Kiryu. That was painful for all of us."

"I'm… sorry," I say.

"Ah, it's an old wound. I think we'll have more time to hurt about it once this is all over."

Old wounds. Right. We can hurt when this is over. When everything's settled.

"So, I know Yusei and the others are around here somewhere," Crow continues. "He got called on by the spider guy to come and fight, so that's why we're here. I'm only down here because I was curious. Like you, I guess, since you stayed to snoop." He clears his throat. "What… what was _that_ like?"

"I feel fuzzy," I admit, "from sitting down for so long. And… And the Dark Signers are good at illusions. That's what Kiryu told me. I found their leader, a guy named Rudger, and I tried seeing if I could talk some stuff out of him, but no dice. I remember falling asleep before I could do much more than get Rudger to ramble about _fate_ , or something. I think I was having a nightmare before you woke me up."

"Well, you're awake now, and we're going to go meet the others. After this, we'll have two Dark Signers left. Yusei told me all the numbers and everything."

"I… I feel bad that I ever questioned who he is," I say.

"Don't. Kiryu saw what he saw, and he misunderstood it. Sometimes you just don't have the whole story. The important thing is that you know now, and you won't be on Yusei's back about it."

"I guess you're right."

"Now," Crow says distantly, "I'm _pretty_ sure this is the way I came in…"

Here, it isn't as pitch black as it was in the corridor. I can make out Crow's faint silhouette, and when he turns to me, I can see the whites of his eyes.

"There's an old lab over this way," Crow continues. "I found a picture of yours and Yusei's dad in there."

"I-I have one of them, too," I tell him, reaching to make sure that the photos are still in my pocket. "This is the lab where it happened, then. The reactor explosion."

"Makes enough sense to me. Yusei told me the blast was what separated Neo Domino from Satellite, not an earthquake."

"Yeah," I whisper. "I heard about that, too."

Around us, the rock walls start to become crumbling bits of metal and plastic. My eyes do a better job adjusting to this place; there's light coming from somewhere, so suddenly I can see some faint colors and details beyond the occasional shadow.

"Whoa, _whoa_ ," I say quickly, tugging backward on Crow.

Crow stops and blurts, "What, what? What's wrong?"

I point, ahead where I feel something strange, something I've never felt before, and a figure steps out from behind a crushed square of metal that must have been a machine in its past life. A machine, maybe, that was put together by my father's hands.

I peer into the darkness, at the shape, and though I don't recognize what I sense, I recognize the shape of the person as they come closer to us.

" _Director_ _Goodwin_?" I breathe.

"Hello to you, as well."

"What… what are _you_ doing here?" Crow asks.

"I've come to say farewell to my elder brother," he responds. He places what looks like a picture frame down on top of a crumbling desk on his way to us. From what I can make out, he's still in that immaculate gray suit. Like no dirt or grime in all of Satellite would even _think_ of touching him. "He was such a bright man. A genius, even, for his age. But he saw himself as fate's messenger, and took an unbelievable burden onto his shoulders."

"...what happened?" I murmur. This seems so out of place. I need so much more information about what the hell he's doing here… and, is this feeling _really_ coming from _him_?

"I have told you, at least, some of the story, Silvan," he begins. "Though I have omitted the details. Dr. Fudo knew the dangers of Ener-D and declared to us that he was going to stop his research, no matter what its commissioners demanded. As a result, he was relieved of his duties as the project head. It was my brother whom they appointed as his successor. He aimed to complete the project no matter the risks."

"Why didn't they listen to Dr. Fudo?" I ask. "They had to have known it was dangerous!"

"They had their own plans, I suppose. Invested a lot of money into the project. And my brother convinced them that the gains outweighed the losses, though he never told them what there was to gain. I remember finding Dr. Fudo wounded, that there had been an attempt on his life because he was going to try to shut the project down anyways. He knew this war would happen. I can't say he ever imagined that his son would be at its forefront. But he asked me to gather up the Signers when the time came. As did my brother, who knew fully well what he was doing and what he was going to become."

"So, he just killed them all? Your brother?" I breathe. "He killed Dr. Fudo, and all of those researchers?"

"He had been chosen to begin the legacy of the Dark Signers as the very first of them." His voice becomes much quieter as he says, "Your mother tried to save them. She was born with a very unique psychic talent, and she attempted to use it to contain the explosion. But the energy, I surmise, was far too much for even her. I should think that, if she had succeeded, there would have been no Zero Reverse in the first place."

Zero Reverse… so that's what it's called. And my mother tried to stop it.

"So, that's just it," Crow says bleakly. "Everyone just died? All our parents, all those people, because of him? No one could stop it at all?" Crow throws his hands up. "So, we get separated, and we just can't get our districts back together, then? Not even the guy who tried to build the bridge could try to fix it!"

"Do you know," Goodwin says thinly, "who built the Daedalus Bridge?"

"Of course not!" Crow retorts. "But I know he tried to put our cities back together, and it didn't work! Is that because of these dumb fucking Dark Signers? They separated the city, so they keep it separate?"

"You seem to have the same sort of drive and aspiration as your friend Yusei, if you care so deeply about the separation between our two societies," Goodwin muses. "In that case, bring him a message from me. Tell him that, if he manages to defeat my brother at long last, that I will be waiting for him."

Goodwin goes toward a door on the far side of the room that… I guess still works, somehow. It's an elevator. Crow lurches forward, as if to run after Goodwin, but he's gone just like that.

"I-I don't even know what that _meant_!" Crow groans.

"Rudger," I murmur. "Rudger is Goodwin's brother. The first Dark Signer. Gods, that's… that's awful."

Crow shakes his head. "What did that even mean? Ask Yusei to seek him out after?"

"I don't know," I admit. "That was super out of place, but we might have to worry about it later. I think we're close to wherever Yusei is. I can feel it."

"Okay. I'll follow you, then."

Together, his hand still around my arm, we continue forward, where the remains of the lab crumble away again into a long tunnel of stone. I walk slowly, keeping close to Crow because I don't want to lose track of him.

It's not a long tunnel. Actually, not far into the walk, I start to hear shouting. Pink light flourishes up ahead of us at the mouth of the tunnel, and as Crow and I come out into the open, I have to look out before me a few times to register _what_ I'm looking at.

We're beneath a rope bridge, it looks like, and down below us is a sea of light like the one I sat above with Carly. Across from us, I can see the huge shadowy body of what I think is a spider; one of the Immortals, most certainly. It makes my heart leap up into my throat.

Someone right above us, on the bridge, sounds very upset. I think… I think it's Yusei who's shouting. Yes, that's his voice.

"Do you honestly think I care about _fate_?!" He's exclaiming. "It's taken so many victims so far! Have you forgotten what the people who survived are going through?! If my father hadn't conducted his experiments, that explosion never would have happened! It took the lives of all of my closest friends' parents! If it had never happened, everyone would have had loving families and happy lives!"

Oh. Fuck. What did we just walk into? I look to Crow for help, but his eyes have glazed over a little. Like the only thing he's focusing on is what Yusei is saying.

"Why do they even look at me as a friend?! Why don't they bear any bad feelings for me, why do they keep supporting me? How am I supposed to tell them that I'm sorry? That's the only answer I want, Rudger, that's the only thing I want to know about 'fate' and whatever it exists for! _Tell me_! I _dare_ you!"

But… Yusei's father tried to stop it? I don't understand. What has Rudger said to him? Made him believe?

I recognize Rudger himself, his voice booming across the bridge toward us. "Perhaps this is the darkness within your heart speaking, at last."

" _I've_ got an answer for you!" Crow yells suddenly. He sounds choked up.

Something stiffens in Yusei's voice and he asks, "...Crow?"

"Man, _I'm_ sorry! I'm supposed to be your friend, but I never noticed that you felt like this! I've never thought that my life was somehow ruined or even the slightest bit worse because of you or your dad, so you don't have to feel responsible! And, if I ever had a fate at all, if any of us did, it was only for us to have met each other! You can't let this prick tell you how to feel about anything! You can't let him make you blame yourself!"

I swallow a thickness in my throat and call, " _Yusei_!"

He sounds—confused, but relieved. "Silvan?"

"This is your electrode, Yusei!" I say. "Remember what I said! You're gonna survive it! You're gonna live and be you despite it, and no matter what you think of yourself, you have people who are going to be there to love you unconditionally despite it!"

There's a long pause. It's heavy with all the words Crow and I threw out.

Finally, I hear Yusei again. "All right, maybe I don't deserve my friends, but I'm not going to let them down! I activate my Trap card, Stardust Flash! During the turn "Stardust Dragon" Tributed itself, this Trap Special Summons a "Stardust Dragon" from my Graveyard!"

The spider Immortal rocks back and forth like a building on an unsteady foundation. A brilliant light from above us goes diving toward us, and beyond the horrifying screeching noise the spider makes as it's, presumably, destroyed, I feel as if something heavy is being lifted from my shoulders.

Rudger put that nightmare in my head. All those horrible memories of Divine, the voice that sounded like me whispering misery into my own ears… Yusei beat him. He'll be gone, we'll be one step closer to the end.

So, why… why do I hear him laughing? _Rudger_?

"This is not the end, Yusei!" Rudger calls. His voice sounds like it's coming through thick fog. "A god stronger than you or me has already been unleashed! If all four units are not controlled before sunset, the King of Hell will be revived!"

King of… _fuck_ , how much have I really missed?

I hear clamoring from up above us; a lot of shouting and screaming, at Yusei to get off of the bridge. Crow is trying to find a place to see what's going on without losing his footing and falling from the rocks into the sea below us.

"Regrettably, I cannot allow you to leave this place!"

What happens next is like—like slow motion. I feel the blast in my bones before I see it. The bridge goes up in flames, and I don't see Rudger, but I see Yusei as he plummets down, through open air, and vanishes into the sea of light.

What… what is it, even? Energy? Light? Yusei doesn't reappear, even after I stare down at the spot he disappeared into for a long enough time that the colors are imprinted onto my corneas.

Crow, beside me, has fallen to his knees, and he has his hands pressed to his face.

He… He can't be gone, can he? Not just like that? I feel like my ears are stuffed with cotton as I try to process what just happened. He can't just—be dead. Or gone, or… or anything. Not after the confession we walked into. Not after all he went through. Not after losing so many of his friends. It can't happen like this. He let me out, and I let him fall. But what do I do about it?

I am broken and incapable of so many things, the last living evidence of Divine's legacy, and despite it, Yusei helped let me go. I peer over the edge of the cliff face, the toes of my boots tottering on the seam where the rocks drop off into nothing.

There's this voice saying, _Go. Go see. Go get him_ , like a little angel of death on my shoulder. _You're not afraid to die. Go see where he went_.

Crow shouts my name and reaches out to grab me as I fall forward.

"Let go," I urge him.

" _Let go_?! What the _fuck_ are you doing?!"

"I'm going to go get him," I say. I hit his hand away, and—and I'm free falling, forward, into open air and then into a sea of color.

I don't know what I expect it to feel like, but I hit the surface of it and pass over onto the other side like the world is turning upside down and I'm falling from somebody else's sky. Everything is vibrant, glowing, candy-colored sky, for miles and miles. Like the sunsets I used to catch glimpses of from the observation deck in Arcadia.

 _Go. Go. No fear. No fear._

I'm not afraid to die. There are fates worse than that.

My feet hit something solid, but everything still looks like sky for forever. It's pretty and silent and no wind blows, and as I start forward, the ground gives beneath my feet like rubber.

Everything I hear is like a whisper from another world. _Go. Keep going. Don't stop. Go see._

I bounce along, forward and forward into the sky, and as I go I start to see shapes and shadows. They're only faint outlines against the pastel world around me, but I know they're there. They whisper at me to _keep going_.

The whispers keep getting louder and louder, and the shapes start following behind me like I'm leading them somewhere.

A wispy, almost inaudible voice reverberates through my skull. " _You're braver than most, especially for your age_."

"I'm not afraid to die," I say. My voice sounds like it's going through water, and when I breathe in, it feels like water, too.

" _That isn't necessarily a good thing._ "

"I didn't say it was. All it means is that death would be the perfect escape."

" _For most, you're ready to die the day you admit you've done all you need to. For you, it means that you have a ways to go before you've lived._ "

"...what is this place?"

" _Ener-D._ " The voice flutters around to the other side of my head. " _When the meltdown happened, the energy was powerful enough to contain the souls of all who were trapped within it. This is their final resting place, until the energy containing them is released_."

"A graveyard," I say. "A graveyard of scientists."

" _Many of whom did not willingly participate in their project_."

"What does that mean?"

" _The city forced its completion. Not a single worker wanted to be here the day they died. Even its own creator knew that it was doomed._ "

"And you?"

" _I speak for them_."

"You 'speak' for them?" I ask.

" _Being dead is very different from being trapped_."

"I would rather be dead than trapped."

" _That is something we have in common, then. Look at me, darling_."

She's the lady out of the picture. My hand flies to my breast pocket, where those photos still live. Here she is, walking with me, looking like she's not a day over twenty-five. Hair pulled back, crinkly white collared shirt, like she was right in the middle of working when she was put here.

"Hi Mom," I breathe.

" _You look so much like your father._ "

How strange that I look like my mother to everyone but her. "Is he here, too?"

" _Everyone is here. But only I still have form._ "

"How?" I breathe.

" _The reason you're here is the same reason I am. The gift we share has condemned us both._ "

"Gift," I repeat.

" _I once had a very good friend who turned his back on me_ — _but that's a different story. He called our gift the inclination to 'internalize'_."

"The—The subclass," I recall. I forgot about that. "You're psychic, too."

" _You inherited many things from me, including the conflict I wish had vanished with me. I take the blame for all your life has amounted to thus far. But, for my sake, I ask that it be yours to end. You tell him that you are too good for him. You are not his_."

"I-I don't understand."

" _You will. You are loved, my darling, and your dear brother is, too. I am proud that you have sworn so much of yourself to a conflict you know nothing about. You are so much more than you believe yourself to be, and even here, in this state, I feel it in you._ "

"...did _you_ call me here?"

" _I, and another. The battle can't continue without Dr. Fudo's son._ "

"Where is he?" I ask.

" _Ever more forward. I must warn you, though: when you take him, you must not come back._ "

"Why not? How do I free you?"

" _There is only so much you can take before you end up trapped here as I am_."

"You… you're not dead, are you?" I say. "You kept saying 'trapped.' You're not dead, you're trapped."

" _Our survival here depends upon our gift, darling. And I am beyond saving._ "

"I'll get you out," I urge. "I'll get you out somehow. You—You can Expel everything you took in, and you'll be okay—"

" _My time is long finished. I don't wish to walk with the living again if it's without our family in its entirety. I ask that you learn to live, despite all I gave you that made you unable to. Fix the mistakes that I couldn't_." Her voice starts to fizzle out, and the figure of the woman walking with me becomes translucent. " _Hurry. Hurry, before you can no longer leave. Go get him. Go_."

I can feel her walking with me the rest of the way, even though I don't know where 'the rest of the way' is. Nowhere or everywhere, I can't be sure. And as I move, the world turns blue; I leave a trail of sky behind me.

I walk until I feel sluggish and heavy, but I somehow I know I've found what I came for. The voices around me are still murmuring, still speaking to each other and to me, as I reach out a hand to pull him up out of whatever world is on the other side.

 _Don't come back_ , my mother's voice is saying. _Don't come back_.

When I wake, it feels like my entire body is on fire. On pure instinct, every joint in my body locks and I clench my teeth together to keep from screaming. There are hands all over me, trying to put out the fire, but it's inside me. Tears eke down my cheeks from the pressure of trying to keep myself from giving an audible pain response.

Gods, I'm back in the testing area, aren't I? That's the only other thing that's burned this much. I can't let him see me cry. It'll get worse if he sees.

 _Let it out_ , something is urging me.

"You _have_ to _let it out_."

"I… can't," I say between gritted teeth.

"You _can_."

"N...No."

"Listen to me. You need to let yourself feel something."

"I-I d...on't."

"Nothing is going to happen to you. You need to let it out, otherwise you could be seriously hurt." Hands clamp around my shoulders. "It's okay. Even if it's just this once. You have to tell yourself it's okay to let it out."

"I-I don't k-know how."

"Yes you do. It's in there somewhere. Trust me on this. Please."

I can't, I can't, I can't. I'll get in trouble. I'll be shut away for weeks. No reactions, no arguing, or I'll be in a lot of trouble. If I want to survive, no emotions allowed. No reactions allowed. I'm alive because of that silent uprising. All but a dead girl walking.

"You will be okay. I want you to breathe it out with me on the count of three, all right?"

"I-I can't."

"Yes you can. I promise nothing bad will happen. Let me help you." A pause. "On the count of three."

No, no, no. If I shook my head, I think I'd crack, so I stay still.

"One."

Can't do this now. Can't.

"Two."

I'll be dead for sure.

" _Three!_ "

The fire feeling explodes up and away from me, out of a combination of the pressure of keeping it inside and the sudden shock of that shout. It burns on its exit, and I can't take it any longer: I scream and scream and scream. My body pulls upward like there's a string running through my stomach, yanking me off of the ground, and I dig my nails into the dirt I feel beneath my fingers.

When it's over and my face feels sticky with sweat and tears, my hands feel grimy from the dirt, and I'm desperately trying to catch my breath, I can at last open my eyes and shoot upward until I'm sitting, ready to apologize, ready to beg for a lighter punishment.

My eyes focus in on glimmering slivers of rainbow light spiraling upward into the air around me, the eerie pink and violet light cascading over cave walls, and the person kneeling in front of me.

My hand flies to his face. Making sure he's real. That I'm not dreaming. He looks startled, almost taken aback, but I can't move my fingers away from his cheek. "Y-You're not Divine."

"No," Yusei says serenely. "I'm not."

"You're alive," I breathe.

"And, for the second time," he replies, "because of you."

I swallow the pressure building in my throat. "... _fuck_ , that hurt a lot."

"If you're well enough to joke, are you well enough to stand?" He asks, something like weary amusement coloring his voice.

"I-I can try," I say, reaching to grab his hand. "W-What happened? What did I do?"

"I was… somewhere," he answers. "I don't know. Surrounded by all this light, all of these ghosts… I saw my father there, Silvan."

"I saw my mother," I whisper.

His free hand flies to my arm, like a reassurance he's offering at the same time he's hauling me up onto my feet. "...He told me I had to win. That this was far from over, and… And then you were there. You used Evan's gift."

"Evan's… gift?"

"The energy thing. You reached out for me and suddenly we were back here. You took in all that light that was around us, and you wouldn't let it back out."

My throat feels raw from screaming. "I-I know that part."

"Evan told me Kiryu took you," he says. "Right out from the house. Did he hurt you?"

"No," I say. "But he made me question who you were for a second, and I have to apologize to you for that. I doubted you, and that's one of the worst things I could do, especially right now."

His tired expression gentles even more. "It's okay. I'm just glad you're all right."

"I'm glad you are, too," I say.

Gravel tumbles down the slope to my right as Evan suddenly comes barreling down into me. He socks Yusei in the shoulder hard enough that he stumbles, and he's shaking so hard that I don't know if he's ever going to be able to speak.

"Don't ever do that again!" He roars after a long semi-silence full of sniffling. "It's bad enough that I thought I lost my best friend, then my fucking _sister_ goes diving in after him!? You're a piece of _shit_ , Silvan!"

"But I saved us," I say mockingly.

"You're not allowed to sass me, you gave me a fucking panic attack!"

"Okay, but no more!" I wrap my arms around his back to hug him back. "I'm okay! Look, feel my arms? I'm here, Evan, I'm right here. And it's almost over, right? I missed half of the party!"

"You did," Yusei sighs. "But that's also a good thing."

"We can go outside and contact Jack or Aki to see who we can go help next," Evan sniffs into my shoulder. "Please, _gods_ , no more diving into energy. _Please_. I'm begging you. I can't take much more of this."

"No more trouble, I promise," I say. "Pinky swear."

"Let's save the oaths and things until we're actually out of danger," Yusei suggests. "When we know we're safe for _real_."

Evan steps away from me to rub away at his eyes, and then reaches out his hand to gesture for us to follow.

On our way back up the slope, trailing Evan toward our friends, Yusei reaches out for me. I freeze as he says, "Can I?"

I blink at him, and he moves a bit of my hair aside, carefully, as if trying not to touch my skin. It takes me a moment to understand, and when I do, I nod at him. His palm rests against that spot between my throat and my shoulder, and I reach out my own hand to put it to his side.

Our electrodes.


	29. Hero

When we all finally climb out into the open, I find that I've been trapped in the biggest crater I've ever seen. It makes sense, though. It must have been formed from the explosion.

Our group consists of me, Evan, Yusei, Crow, the twins, and Ushio, for some reason. Ushio apparently tagged along solely to try and keep everyone else from getting into trouble, even though the fate of the world most _certainly_ doesn't fall to him. Mikage, I learn, went with Aki.

According to Ushio, Yusei's father built four failsafe towers that will shut down the generator the Dark Signers have been siphoning power from. We just have to activate them. The keys are the Signers' dragon cards: Yusei's Stardust Dragon and Aki's Black Rose Dragon, as well as the dragon cards that must be Jack's and Ruka's. So far, to everyone else's knowledge, two towers have been activated. Jack, though, asked to go to his tower alone, so we're heading out to go help Aki.

At the mention of Jack, I can't stop thinking about that Dark Signer, Carly. Murdered by Divine, and taken advantage of by some god somewhere who capitalized on her human emotions.

One thing I know, though, is that, if Jack asked to be left alone, Carly has to be important to him. And if he's the way she said he is, then maybe I've misjudged him. Maybe there's a heart in there beyond the ego. I just need more time and more room to try to understand him.

I cling to Evan for the whole ride—Kiryu whisking me away means that my duel runner must still be back at Martha's house—and brace myself against the biting cold wind. Despite how late it must be, I feel wide awake. It could be the cold. Or the fear of what we'll find when we get to wherever Aki's tower is. Misty didn't seem like any old opponent, and I now know from personal experience that hell hath no fury like a sibling scorned.

When we stop, I blink as I take in the strange buildings stretching toward the sea in the distance. Yusei gave me his spare helmet to borrow for the ride, since Evan doesn't have one, and as I'm handing it back to him, I say, "What is this place?"

"You've probably read every single book in existence," Yusei retorts, "but you've _never_ seen a picture of a theme park?"

"Ah… Well, I mean, I've heard of them. But I thought they were supposed to be… I dunno, populated."

"This one's been abandoned as long as we've been alive," Evan amends. "Even though a lot of it is still intact. We used to fuck around here all the time."

"Yeah, Jack suggested we try to jerry-rig the Ferris wheel once, and I have _never_ been more sure that I was about to die!" Crow shouts from where he's parked on the other side of Ushio's Security truck.

"This place looks like a horror movie in the making," Rua amends; Crow helps him and Ruka down from the truck, and Ushio hops out of the driver's seat to come stand by us, wearing a very plastered frown.

"Ooh, let's not go there," Evan says. "We've already overloaded our scary quota. Let's just help Aki and get out."

"How do we find her, though?" Ruka asks. "The duel hasn't started yet; there's no glyph and my mark isn't doing anything."

"I guess that means we look for her the old fashioned way," Yusei says.

"We should split up to cover more ground," Ushio suggests gruffly. "I'm sure if I try to contact Mikage, too, I can figure out where she and Izayoi went."

"It's probably safe to assume that they went toward the tower, but it's likely that Misty will be in there somewhere waiting," Yusei adds. "So, how are we splitting?"

"I'll take the kids," Ushio exhales. "They'll be safer that way, anyways."

I don't know what I expect, but nobody argues. So Ushio and the twins go one way, and Yusei, Crow, Evan, and I go the other.

"...will they really be safer with him?" I ask once we're out of earshot.

" _Ushio_ will be safe with _them_ ," Yusei retorts, which makes Evan laugh.

As the four of us start toward a fat red and yellow building that says "FUN HOUSE" in big letters, Crow pipes up, "...ah, so is anybody going to tell me about this Aki girl? Maybe so I'm not the only person here flying blind?"

"Oh," I say. "You haven't met her?"

"Nah, I met up with Yusei and Evan after everybody split up. I have no face for that name."

"She's a piece of work," Yusei says plainly.

"She's _nice_ and _my friend_ ," I say hotly.

"She's nice because she knows you and she trusts you. To anybody else, at best, I'd call her _cordial_."

"Should I, uh… be scared?" Crow laughs nervously.

"No," I say. "Yusei did some unsolicited pushing of her buttons at the Fortune Cup, so now they don't like each other. Ignore him, Aki's very nice and she knows her way around a battlefield."

"Okay, cool, then."

"'Unsolicited pushing of buttons'," Evan repeats. "Yusei in four words."

That makes both him and Crow laugh. I can manage something like a smile, that they're able to find humor after so much has gone wrong tonight.

"Glad you're all having fun at my expense," Yusei sighs. A second later, he stops so quickly that he almost trips, and his mark illuminates.

My ears pop; around us, I can feel the ground trembling and the air getting hotter.

"We got here just in time," Yusei breathes. "Feels like they just started."

"Okay, so… let's go find them," Evan says.

We spend a lot of time running around the park, looking for Aki and where she could be. Yusei isn't much help; he can feel that Aki is dueling, and I assume he can feel if she's doing well, but he's sort of useless when it comes to finding exactly where she is. At one point, I take the lead, and I lose the others for a little bit, too, while I'm trying to reach out and sense where Aki is. It shouldn't be too hard, she's _exorbitantly_ powerful, even when she isn't directly using her powers…

In front of a long wall of mirrors, I can sense her the strongest. Where it says "ENTRANCE" under a big arrow is blocked by a mirror… it could be an illusion. Kiryu said all Dark Signers had the power of illusion Maybe Aki's inside? I feel forward, wondering if I could push through one of these mirrors, if Misty did something to them, when my foot hits something metal. I scramble to try and see what I kicked, because it felt kind of heavy.

It's Aki's stabilizer.

I weigh it in my shaking hands. What's happening? Why did she take it out?

"Silvan? What is it?" Evan and Crow appear and crowd in beside me.

"Aki's stabilizer," I say.

"That's not good," Evan replies. "What's it doing all the way over here?"

"I… I don't know." I slip it into my pocket for safe keeping. "I think she's in here, though."

"Let's check the perimeter of the building," Evan suggests. "Maybe there's a way we can get into the hall of mirrors and closer to Aki."

"Maybe," I say.

"I say we look for some higher ground," Crow replies. "That's better than looking for a way in, where we're all in danger."

"Wait, where's Yusei?" I ask.

"I don't know, he wandered off."

"What do you mean, _he wandered off_?"

"Just that, I don't know where he went!" Crow remarks.

"I honestly thought he was following you," Evan says.

"Okay," I exhale, "how about this. You two go look for a way to figure out what's happening with Aki, and _I'll_ go look for Yusei."

"How will we find each other, though?" Crow asks.

"I'll Specify you," I say. "As long as you stay in one place, it shouldn't be difficult to find you."

"Got it."

I split off from Evan and Crow, who start their way around the hall of mirrors. I start to retrace my steps and see if Yusei may have gone snooping deeper into one of the abandoned attractions.

A little ways from the entrance, I see a billboard that's toppled into the footpath. I swear that wasn't there when we came in. Did it just give out and fall? Or maybe the Line going up caused it to topple? Either way, I feel the need to check around here.

I twist my way around some shriveled-looking poles, presumably, for ropes to make a queue, when I think I hear somebody shouting. I have to stop and wait, listen again, and then I'm _absolutely_ sure that somebody is calling out.

It takes me a while to figure out where it's coming from, but eventually, I find my way inside a Fun House, where Ushio is trying to pry a grate off of the ground.

"W-What's happening?" I exclaim.

"Hi! Hey!" Yusei's… _under_ the grate? Mikage's beside him, gripping the iron bars, and both of them are trying to kick up and away from water that's rapidly filling the little room they're in. "Help? _Please_?"

"H-How did you get in there?!" I exclaim.

"Never mind that! Can you help?"

"Ushio, get back!" I command, and to my surprise, he listens without complaining. Then I take a breath, unhitch my stabilizer from around my arm, and Waste the grate upward.

It feels like it was forced down by something else, something that wasn't gravity, because it was on too tightly to have just fallen into place. Wasting it seems to work, though, because it goes flying up and off onto the ground. Ushio reaches out for Mikage, and I grab onto Yusei, pulling him up out of the water with all of my weight as my anchor.

He shakes out his wet hair, and I put my hands up to try to deflect it away from my eyes. "That makes _three_ times you've saved my life, Silvan, I don't want you hear you say the word 'debt' ever again."

"Oh, fuck off," I say. "What happened?"

"Some—Some man claiming to be a Bureau agent shoved us both down there!" Mikage splutters. Ushio is holding onto her by the shoulder, and she's sputtering water out onto the ground.

"He was psychic, Silvan," Yusei adds. "I don't know what class, but I know he was. He used abilities like yours."

A psychic? _Here_? "Did… Do you know which way he went?"

"No, but he couldn't have gone far. He was pretty interested in Aki's duel."

"Let's go find him, then," I say.

Together, we bolt back outside and I reach out to see if I can sense any other psychics besides Aki and my brother. Is it a Satellite psychic, I wonder? Maybe someone who was living here? If that's possible?

"Are you okay?" I ask as we run. "Anything bruised? How are your stitches?"

"Martha's definitely going to have to redo a couple of them," he says. "Lucky for me, I've been so anxious all night, I stopped feeling pain two or three hours ago."

"That's not lucky, that's really dangerous, Yusei."

"Details. Are we getting anywhere close?"

"I… I think so." I stop in front of what looks like an old aerial gondola ride, where there's a stairwell leading up to a little observation-deck looking area. Remnants of cables sit, dead and unused on poles in a line into the distance. I take a couple steps up.

"Careful, Silvan," Yusei murmurs.

"I'm being careful, I just..." I take another step up the stairs. "There's definitely a psychic up there."

"It has to be the Bureau officer that locked me and Mikage under the grate." He stands beside me, hand on my arm. "Can you recognize anything about them?"

"No, it doesn't... for me, at least, it doesn't work like that. It can't be Aki, she's..." I turn my head toward the dome of rose-colored light in the distance.

"Do you want to go up there?" He asks.

"...Yeah," I say. "Stay close."

The two of us creep up the stairs, Yusei following closely at my back, toward whoever I can feel in the room at the top, whoever tried to lock Yusei and Mikage in a room full of rising water.

I don't know who we'll find at the top, but there's an uneasy feeling in my stomach. Who's this person meddling in the Signers' business?

When we hit the top of the stairs, I come up into a room with a half broken window and a view of Aki's duel. Standing directly in front of the window is my worst nightmare personified. My stomach careens downward to my knees. A man in a long dirty overcoat turns toward us, his face half concealed by shaggy russet hair.

"Cipher," Divine says, his voice a content sort of purr. "What a pleasant surprise."

"D-Divine?" Every bit of resolve I think I've ever had melts from me. "You're... alive?"

"Don't sound too disappointed, now." He pivots. "And Yusei Fudo—how unpleasant to see you, I'd hoped that grate wouldn't be able to budge. You've been quite the wrench in my plans lately, haven't you?"

I can't feel my fingers—all of my words are gone.

Yusei says, "Why are you here?"

"Well," Divine retorts, "why do you think? These damned Dark Signers destroyed my movement, permanently scarred me, and have forced me to start all over again."

"That doesn't answer my question."

"But I believe it does. I currently have complete control over Aki, and it would appear that Cipher is too... ah, occupied, to do so much as lift a finger."

I'm frozen to the floor. My brain is telling my body to run, to get away from here, but my feet won't move.

"Finding Aki was very easy, since it was a given that Goodwin would go after her. Although, I suppose I should have found you as easily."

He starts toward me and I'm still frozen to the floor. The room is beginning to spin—all I can think of is that it's over, that I'm going back... that, beyond confusion and anger that he's still alive is just fear, fear, _fear_.

Thinking about closure, about doing something, about saying something, is so easy. Just the thinking part. And that was me thinking about him in handcuffs, maybe, far enough that he can't see or touch me, just hear my voice. Not this. Certainly not this.

I blink, and Yusei is in front of me. "Aki is changing—she's changed already, after you tried messing with her mind the first time. She's stronger than you and she's going to break free. My friends and I are going to help her. And, if you want Silvan, you're going to have to go through me."

"I'm not afraid of you," Divine laughs. "You Signers are ridiculous wastes of celestial energy. Aki is the only one of you worth paying attention to, and with Cipher beside her, they're practically unstoppable."

"Do you really think I'm going to let you just control people?"

"Once someone is in my hands, they'll be at my mercy," Divine remarks cooly. "Regardless of who they are."

"Sounds fake."

"I don't recall asking for your input." Divine continues his advance; Yusei's hand tightens on my arm.

"Don't come any closer," Yusei exclaims. "You're not touching her."

Divine scoffs. "How cute. You think you have a say in what happens next."

" _Run_ , Silvan," Yusei demands.

"We're going home, Cipher," Divine states. " _Now_."

" _Silvan_ ," Yusei says, something in his voice like he's begging.

"If you're good and come quietly, l may be willing to forgive your misdemeanors and let you off with a warning," Divine states. "Come here, Cipher."

"You can't shut down now, Silvan," Yusei attempts. "This is happening. This is _real_. You have to _try_ to do something about it. Get out of here. _Please_."

"That's enough, you meddlesome Satellite," Divine retorts. "It was amusing when you attempted to break Aki, but you've crossed the line at trying to take _both_ of my protégés from me." He holds out a hand—my heart leaps as Yusei goes flying. I hear the breath escape him, and the thud as his back hits the wall, then the floor.

"L-Leave him alone!" I blurt, my voice hoarse. He turns over, leaning heavily on his right side, where his stitches are... "H-He has nothing to do with this!"

"Come with me, Cipher," is all Divine says.

" _Silvan_ ," Yusei tries, sounding strained.

" _Cipher_ ," Divine warns.

"T-That's not my name," I manage to say, no stronger than a pitiful little squeak. "S-Stop… calling me that."

"I beg your pardon?" Divine's voice changes to that—that menacing, parental sort of tone.

"That's not my name," I tell myself to say, a little stronger this time. "Don't call me that."

His expression darkens. "Oh?"

'Complacent' was what Misty called me. I sat by and I let all those things in Arcadia happen, but what else could I have done? I had nowhere else to go. But now I—I have Evan and Yusei and Aki and Crow and Martha and Rua and Ruka… And I don't want to be taken from them. Not again. _Please_ , not again.

My hands start shaking so hard that I think something important in me has finally snapped.

"You... you stole me from my home. Took my memories away from me, gave me a new name that meant—that meant _nothing_ , and you want me to go _back_?" My hands tighten into fists. My anger isn't as strong as my fear, but now, it's palpable. "Why would you do that? What could you possibly have to gain? You already had a city full of psychics for... for your army, or whatever you wanted. Why would you go all the way to Satellite to handpick me out of a bunch of orphans?"

"Everything that I have done," he says, "has been for your own good."

"That's your favorite thing to say," I argue. " _For my own good_. You say that every time you tell me 'no', every time you fill me up with static because I didn't do what you wanted me to...! You locked me up for eight years, Divine, and I didn't even know it was that long until someone told me that was how long I'd been missing!"

"Would you rather have grown up in this garbage heap?" Divine demands in a voice that makes me shrink. "I gave you everything this place couldn't!"

"I'd give every second of whatever you think you gave me to get all of this back!" I say. "Because of you, I keep spending all of the time I can looking for something new to do just so I can feel something! I sacrificed my life and my happiness to be obedient to you, and that was never enough for you anyways! The second you found Aki, I was still in trouble for breathing, but you could've cared less what I did as long as it was inside the Movement!"

"You refuse to let yourself feel," he states. "That is not my doing. When I pushed you, you receded, and when I pushed Aki, she moved to excel because it made her angry to disappoint." His voice lowers, and the menacing sound of it sends shivers down my spine. "This is the first I've seen of your anger, Cipher. Because you bottled every emotion I gauged in you up, you could never amount to what I needed you to."

"And yet you still want me in captivity?" I say hollowly. "Even though I'm just— _useless_? Your _Cipher_?"

"Not useless— _dormant_. Eight years of trying every method I could to elicit a major outward emotion in you only made you more and more silent. I decided that you had to have a breaking point. One I needed to reach. Today, it seems, I've finally reached it."

"I'm not your experiment," I breathe. "You don't get to treat me like some successful ten-step-plan pet project. I'm a human being and—and you _broke_ me."

"Often times," he states, "you must crack someone into pieces to see what they're truly made of."

"Yeah, cool motive," Yusei groans, hunched over at my feet. His voice brings me back down to Earth. Reminds me that I'm not alone. "Still human trafficking."

"In a way, I suppose _you_ helped," Divine remarks, sneering down at him. "Had Cipher never found motivation to leave Arcadia for good, I don't know how much longer this would have been delayed."

"What?" I say bitterly. "Your _monologue_?"

"No— _your_ metamorphosis." Yusei forces himself up as a sphere of fire forms in Divine's hand. "Time to show me what you're truly made of, Cipher."

" _Run_ ," Yusei manages.

I feel scattered and my hands are still shaking, but—I pull Yusei out the door, to the crumbling patio outside. I'm stumbling all the way; I can see Misty's Immortal all of a sudden, an enormous shadow of something like a reptile, not far away from us. She summoned it pretty quickly. It's too late for us to turn back when I realize that it's a dead end—Divine saunters out to us, brushing embers from his gloves.

"Stay away," I demand. "I-I'm not doing anything for you!"

"We'll see."

"Silvan," Yusei warns, standing in front of me again, brandishing his duel disk like a shield.

"How frightening. A little Satellite who breaks like sandstone," Divine miffs. "I wonder just how many pieces you can break into, Yusei." He's advancing, and at this point, I don't know what to do. I don't know how to ward him off. There's nothing here to Waste—nothing worthwhile—and receiving any help from Aki is impossible.

And Yusei's in the mix, now, too: two psychics and a common. I'm sure Yusei could hold his own against a regular person, but Divine is no regular person.

Then, Divine goes sailing up into the air, arms and legs stuck to his sides. I can see him struggling against whatever is lifting him.

From the doorway of the balcony, my brother, with his hand outstretched, says, "Hey, asshole, ready to fuckin' die for _real_ this time?"

"I don't think I've ever been so happy to see you in my entire life," Yusei groans.

"Thanks, pal, I'll figure out if that's a compliment or an insult later." He begins to cross the balcony to us. "Are you two okay?"

"Well, we're alive." When Evan gets close enough, Yusei adds, no louder than a murmur, "Silvan's shaking like a leaf."

"I don't blame her."

Behind him, Divine starts to careen downward. I can feel the pressure in the air. He's Wasting against my brother.

"Watch out!" I cry—a ball of fire comes careening toward us, and Evan whirls to catch it in the center of his chest. The fire crackles off of him, spinning inward, as he Internalizes it before it can sear through his shirt.

Divine, on the ground now, says, "Why not? Make this more interesting."

"Hi dickhead!" Evan says cheerfully. "You must be Divine! I've punched you a lot in my dreams, pal, and I've only known about your existence for about three days! Sorry to hear you're not dead, because when I'm through with you, you're gonna wish you were!"

Divine sneers at him. "Well, it would seem that I _did_ make the right choice."

"How about you tell me about that! Why Silvan?" Evan asks. "Why come all the way to Satellite to take her? And why not take the both of us? What the fuck is your deal?"

Divine looks over him, like a predator over prey, and scoffs. "You're both mine. But _you_ look far too much like _him_."

"Oh, so we're playing riddles now?"

Divine starts a slow advance toward us, clapping the soot from his gloves as he goes. Evan stands his ground in front of me and Yusei. "Cipher, I suppose you do deserve an explanation, so here it is. This world did not deserve your mother. She was better than any psychic or common ever could have been."

Divine knew my mother?

"But she didn't pick you, did she?" Yusei pipes up from beside me, and for a second I don't understand what he's talking about. "She picked their father, Sö—"

" _Don't you dare say his name_!" Divine roars. "He didn't deserve her, either!" He takes a second, it seems, to regain his composure. "What she saw in some smitten common man does not concern me. She betrayed our people when she entertained his foolishness, risked producing children that were _common_. Had you been mine, you would have been the most powerful psychics in this day and age. Though you are not mine in blood, you are mine in essence. I will _make_ you powerful."

My mother. My _mother_? I stand there, still trembling, my hand clutching Yusei's arm for some semblance of balance, trying to piece it together. What motivation could he have?

"You have some serious problems," Evan says slowly, menacingly, "if you kidnapped a child _solely_ because you think you got fucking _friendzoned_. You motherfucking _psychopath_!"

I put it together about a second after Evan says it. I realize what Yusei said, that my mother 'picked' my father as opposed to Divine, and suddenly that's it. That's why he came for me. That's why he took me, didn't take Evan. It's why he passed me off as his child, it's why I was conditioned to call him my father, it's why he tried to train me so hard and punish me when I failed. Because of my mother.

Because my mother was psychic, and Divine was infatuated with her. And she chose my father instead.

 _You inherited many things from me_ , she told me in that sea of light. _I take the blame for all your life has amounted to thus far_.

 _You tell him that you are too good for him. That you are not his_.

"I don't expect _you_ ," Divine begins, "to _understand_ —"

"I understand perfectly!" Evan exclaims. " _Love_ isn't an excuse. Not for _anything_. Love is a poison, and too much of it can kill you, especially coming from a person like you! There's a reason my face looks like this—" Evan points to himself, "—and it isn't because my mother was too good for anyone else! It's because _my father_ was better than _you_! It doesn't change that my sister came from him, too! That she and I might have our mother's features, but we're cut from _his_ cloth! And the fact that you think you're entitled to either of us doesn't make you powerful or the victor in the situation, it just makes you _pathetic_!"

Divine throws up his hand, and my brother, unprotected, suddenly goes sailing over the edge of the balcony.

Yusei dives for him before I can think to, but—it's too late. I can't see him from here, either, from where I've lost my balance at the edge of the crumbling balcony and sunk to my knees. I don't know how far down it is to the ground, or where he could have landed. Or if he's safe.

The twinge of satisfaction I got from listening to my brother rip Divine a new one begins to fade when my old mentor starts toward us again, a darkness on his face that I've never seen.

"You took everything from me," I croak, "because of him? My mother is gone, and you don't think for a second to honor her memory and leave us alone?"

All he says is, "We're going home, Cipher."

"That's just it? You're planning to take me and Aki away now, right in the middle of a battle that decides the fate of millions of people?"

"Humanity always rebuilds," he says. "And, even if they bother us, once they find us, we'll be too powerful for them, anyways."

"I'll die before I go with you, Divine."

"Don't be dramatic."

"I'm not afraid to die," I tell him, shuffling further away, toward the edge of the balcony. "I'll jump."

"You don't have the nerve," he remarks. "In eight years, you've never had enough nerve to do anything dangerous to yourself."

"Then you haven't been paying attention."

He—He actually laughs. "The electricity doesn't count. Your mother's gift will always save your life in that respect."

"That doesn't make it okay," I croak. "That doesn't _remotely_ make it okay! You know what, I saw all of your files, I know you didn't just do that to me!"

"Oh?"

"Your intentions, my powers, they don't matter! Forget what it did to me, I know there are other people who died from it! Even if I didn't! T-Toby, _that_ Dark Signer's little brother, down there, who's fighting Aki, for one! You killed him, didn't you? You're the reason Aki's down there dueling, anyways!"

Divine sort of laughs. "Does it matter much? In the end, this Dark Signer is no match for Aki at her strongest. She's so pathetic for going dark after something as ridiculous as that."

Yusei pulls himself back toward me, and he rolls onto his feet, his hand fumbling toward his duel disk. Something on his face tells me that I just gave him an idea. "Is that true? Did you kill Toby and pin his murder on Aki?"

Divine stares uncaringly behind us at the battlefield. "Not a second of your upbringing was the same as the treatment any of those pitiful recruits received, Cipher. On occasion, when a psychic duelist wanted to join Arcadia, they would go through a series of experiments to test their abilities and see if they were worthy of assimilating into the Movement. One of the experiments consisted of a device that would create a powerful wave of electricity."

I swear I can feel the heat leaving my body.

"Unfortunately, the boy you speak of was unable to withstand the procedure and died as a result. His life wasn't of much use to me anyways, since he couldn't live up to expectations, but that's all right—I have Aki and once you and I see eye to eye, I won't need anyone else." He flicks his hand again and Yusei, unprotected, sails off of the ground and over the edge of the patio.

My heart leaps into my throat; I take a dive for him, my arms scraping against the stone as I slide out to try and grab onto whatever part of him I can. He manages to grab my hand, and with his other he catches himself on the ledge and hangs there while Divine gathers a sphere of fire in his fingers. "Now, Cipher, don't be difficult."

Yusei laughs, despite being a fall away from being seriously injured for the third time tonight. I'd like to smack him upside the head for it. "Thanks for that!"

"What are you talking about?" Divine scoffs. I'm confused, too, but I see my opportunity to pull Yusei to safety.

"I've got a lot of time on my hands, most days," Yusei manages as I heave him up off of the ledge. "A lot of time, and not a lot of nice things. I had to make my own duel disk, which happens to have a record and broadcast setting. Just so you know, whatever Misty does to you for murdering her brother isn't my fault."

A piercing scream skitters up toward us from down on the battlefield. I whirl around just quickly enough to see Misty's Immortal with its head angled down toward us. She... she heard that?

"Aren't you clever," Divine says mockingly. "But this doesn't change anything. By the time the sun comes up, Arcadia will be reborn with you and Aki at the wheel." He raises his hand again, probably to toss Yusei somewhere else.

And this time, my hand goes up, too.

I feel the force and the pressure he's exerting against me like he and I are the same poles on a magnet. It's so much—he's powerful. Much more than I felt in Aki, when we dueled. I'm already exerting so much of myself that my head is spinning.

"Good!" He calls. "Fight back!"

Blood bubbles down my nose, and Yusei makes this sound of concern.

"Are you going to give up?" Divine asks. "Show me all you've been hiding!"

I'm trying to blink away the black spots in my eyes. This is the longest I've ever Wasted with my stabilizer on. And against Divine... I can feel my shoes scraping against the stone as he pushes me further back, inch by excruciating inch.

But over the roaring in my ears, there's more yelling. I blink away the tears and crane my head to let my blood drip onto the stones, and then suddenly I see Evan below us on the ground, his face smeared with dirt, his hands cupped around his mouth to project his voice.

My ears feel like they're stuffed with cotton, so I spend the first few times trying to read his lips. Figure out what he's shouting.

Then I hear it.

"EXPEL!" He's screaming, I think at the top of his lungs. " _SILVAN_! EXPEL!"

For a second I don't know what it means. The word is familiar but everything is so soft and pearlescent around me as the nosebleed gets worse and Yusei's arms curl around me to keep me from falling off of the edge of the balcony that I just... can't remember.

"EXPEL! _SILVAN_!"

Oh. Wait. In the basement, when he... the fire... and... oh. _Oh_.

I reach backward for Yusei and pull him forward, diving in toward Divine, my arm twisted in Yusei's. We hit the ground and the pressure ceases, and I let the blood from my nose drip onto the ground for only a second or two more before I heave myself to my feet and unlatch my stabilizer from around my bicep. It hits the stone with a too-loud clattering noise.

 _Like digging a tunnel_ , Evan had said of it before, in the basement. Down into yourself until you can breathe whatever is in there back out. Like Wasting.

 _You have to let yourself feel_ , Yusei told me before, when I was full of light. Even if it's just this once. Let it out on three.

The electricity on my fingers, I remember it. I feel it. The whole world explodes into a song of glittering blue lightning.

Every pore in my skin, every inch of me, from the tips of my fingers to my very eyelashes, I've become a lightning rod again. But this time, I'm not the converter, not the thing that's supposed to absorb and contain.

I'm the source. And I never knew I had this much in me.

Divine doubles backward instantly to save himself from the static shooting out of me, and as quickly as it started, it's over. The electricity crackles away from my skin and into the air. It smells like my hair's been burnt a little.

My eyes are still reeling, and it takes a moment for them to adjust. The only thing that keeps my legs from giving out is Divine—at my feet, looking up at me as though I were someone great and terrible and ten times taller than I am.

It's mesmerizing. After spending such a long time looking up at him, looking down on him feels so new. So strange.

"It only took eight years," he says, his voice breathless, "for you to show me what I knew you were capable of."

"M-My mother wanted me to tell you," I hear myself say, blood dripping down my lips, "that I am too good for you. That I am not yours." I stumble backward to get away from him before he can do anything else. I teeter off of my feet, and Yusei, who's still on the ground and not quick enough to jump up onto his feet, rolls toward me break my fall.

He's holding onto me, fingers digging into my shoulder, as Divine wobbles his way up again. Before he even takes a step, Yusei's raised his duel disk in front of us again, still trying to protect us, and I'm trying to get my shaky hands to lift off of where they're trapped against my sides.

Suddenly, Misty's Immortal comes out of nowhere, its huge green eyes rolling down toward us. Yusei shoots an arm around me and pulls me down toward the ground, my face underneath the cover of his jacket and my head beneath his duel disk.

"Don't look," he says roughly. "Don't look."

We lay there for a second, and I'm expecting the worst, either from the Immortal or from Divine. But after a moment passes, Yusei raises his head a little more and looks around. "Okay," he breathes. "We're okay."

He helps me up until we're seated, and I'm trying to wipe blood from my face. "W-What happened?"

"The Immortal—it took him," Yusei breathes. "Came right up and swallowed him."

"He's… _gone_?"

"Yeah. I saw it with my own eyes, so I'm sure of it this time."

"What about Evan?" I breathe.

"He's a little beaten up, but he's safe. He's on the ground."

"O-Okay."

"Hey," he murmurs, inclining my chin upward so that I look at him, "you stood up to Divine. I know how hard that must've been after all he's done, but I'm proud of you for doing it."

The word _proud_ hits around in my mind like the sounds from a bell. It most certainly isn't the time for it, but I can't stop myself from beginning to cry. I don't know if it's out of relief, or exhaustion, or finally, finally being free from Divine for real, but Yusei pulls my dirty, bloody face into his shoulder and I cry until my chest starts to hurt.

"T-Thank you," I hiccup, "for letting me out. Thank you for b-being my friend."

"Any day, Silvan. You have me in your corner for as long as you want me. But I need you to promise me something."

"W-What?" I blubber.

"Now I know why you keep running into danger, why you chased after me in the Old Reactor tunnel… you say it's because you're not afraid to die. But I need you to swear to me that you're not going to do that."

"D-Do what?"

"If you ever want to kill yourself ever again, you need to come to me. Go to Evan. Get Aki. Talk to one of us. This is the second time I've heard you say you wanted to do that, and I should have said something the first time, but I didn't, so I'm saying something now. You have people who care about you. And, just like you said to me, we're going to be there for you every step of the way."

"O-Okay. What did I do to deserve a friend like you?"

"You saved me," he says. "It's only fair that I do my best to save you."

We meet Evan down at the bottom, who I found couldn't come up to us because he hurt his ankle when Divine tossed him down. He can move it, but not without pain, which makes me think that it can't be any worse than a bad sprain. He must have Internalized some of the impact from the fall? He throws his arms around me when he sees me, and I make him stoop down so I can kiss his dirty forehead.

"Are you okay?" He asks.

"A-Ask me tomorrow," I say.

He nods. If I think about what just happened right now, if I try to analyze every little detail, I'm not going to be able to keep going through the rest of this battle.

Speaking of battle… Yusei puts his hand on my shoulder to get my attention. His mark has started to flicker. Up over our heads… I recognize The Lizard line as it slowly starts to dim, until it's gone entirely.

"...is it over?" I ask. "Is that it? We're safe? No more Dark Signers?"

"I… I think— _agh_!" Yusei hunches over, hand on his mark. It's stopped flickering, but it hasn't stopped glowing.

"W-What's happening?" I ask. " _Yusei_?!"

"Silvan?" Evan points to the sky, not too far in the distance, where the sky has lit up again. But it's not the sun; it's not quite morning yet. Though it isn't the sun, I do recognize what I see.

"That's… another Nazca Line," I say, swallowing. "That's The Condor."


	30. Carry Your World

Yusei and I help Evan, who's pretty much just hopping the whole way, away from the gondola station and toward the house of mirrors. Outside of it, we see the twins and Ushio supporting Mikage the way we're holding Evan up. She must have taken on some water, from when she was trapped with Yusei.

Crow's there, too, standing with a despondent-looking Jack.

"You finish up?" Yusei calls at him.

" _Yeah_ ," Jack scoffs; and, though he says it like he doesn't care, his face tells me that he feels something different.

"What happened to Evan?" Crow remarks.

"A psychopath launched me off of a balcony," Evan retorts. "It doesn't matter, where's Aki? What's going on up in the sky _now_?"

"The duel's over, I would think that she'd be at the tower," Ruka pipes up. "It can't be… too late, can it?!"

"The Line in the sky is The Condor," I say. "When I was in the Old Reactor tunnel, a Dark Signer I met said that there were only six of them. And I don't think The Condor was one of the ones she listed… There can't be a seventh, can there?"

"I don't know," Yusei remarks, "but we should find Aki. We need to know where we're all at."

We file into the suddenly-open hall of mirrors and twist our way through a long line of tall glass panes. Some of them have shattered; whether it be from the age of this theme park or Aki's duel, I don't know.

At the end, we come into this wide open dirt space. A tall black tower, almost like a cell tower, stands against the background of the ocean and Neo Domino in the distance. I can see Aki, a spot of vibrant red, near the tower with her hands on what I think must be the tower door.

Crow takes over helping Evan walk for me, and I shoot to Aki's side.

"H-Hey!" I say. "Are you okay?!"

"T-The door won't open!" What I can see of her face past her hair is streaked with tears. "I can't be too late! I… how do I fix this? Misty and all of those other Dark Signers died so we could win, _why won't this door open_?!"

I put my hands on her shoulders. "Hang on, hang on. Calm down. We can fix it, there's… I think there's one more Dark Signer."

" _One more_?" She exclaims. A second after that, she practically shrieks, "Why are you covered in blood?!"

I reach to move a piece of her long bangs out of her eyes, behind one of her ears so that I can see her looking at me. "Worry about that later, I'm fine. We need to regroup with the others. We have to figure out what to do."

She doesn't seem to like that idea, judging by her expression, but only a second after I make the suggestion, she takes a deep breath and brushes her bangs back. "... _Okay_."

Together, we return to where the others stand. They're looking off into the distance at the Line in the sky, and the tiniest hints of sunrise beginning to stain the distant water orange.

"Hey, are you all right?" Yusei, to my surprise, is the first to blurt.

Aki blinks at him. "I-I… The tower won't open for me."

"That's okay," he says. "We'll figure it out. We've come this far."

Off in the distance, I hear a roar. The ten of us whirl around to see, off in the distance… a big dark shape creeping toward us from the direction of the B.A.D. Flashes of rainbow light illuminate its dark, dripping wings only briefly against the black sky.

" _Fuck_ ," Evan curses. "Are we too late?"

"W-Wait! What?" I look to Ruka, who has her eyes pinned on one point in the air in front of her. "What do you…"

Is she… she can't be talking to herself? No, she wouldn't be. She wouldn't have her eyes fixed on the space before her as if there were another person there. There's something here she can detect that we can't. Is… Ruka a Medium, then? Is that her subclass?

Aki grabs onto me only a moment before the ground starts to shake. Ruka, Jack, Aki, and Yusei all examine their pulsing marks, and suddenly red light whirls around us. I feel like my body is leaving the ground for a moment, and when I open my eyes from shielding them against the light, I find that we're not in Satellite anymore.

No… we're on Goodwin's home island. I recognize this sprawling green field.

Aki, still beside me, seemed to have stumbled into Crow in the confusion of the light. They stare at each other for a second.

Then Crow, who I've had pinned as the most aloof guy ever, uncouthly stutters, "U-Uh hey."

Aki looks him warily up and down. "...hi?"

"I'm uh. I'm Crow." His voice cracks.

"...I'm Aki?"

I reach for Aki with one hand, clutching her stabilizer in the other. "Maybe let's save the introductions for later!"

"Good idea," Aki says; she accepts her stabilizer and begins to twist her loose bangs back up into it.

I swear I hear Crow hiss, his head suddenly stuck between Yusei's and Evan's shoulders, " _You assholes didn't tell me she was hot_."

"What are we doing here!" I shout, definitely louder than necessary, in the attempt to keep us all on topic.

"I don't know but…" Yusei trails off and points ahead of us. " _That_ definitely wasn't here last time."

In the center of the clearing, there's a huge altar-looking structure. Like some artist's reimagining of Machu Picchu. Over us, in the sky, The Condor looms like a promise of certain death.

Our duel runners are lined up behind us—Yusei's, Jack's, Crow's, and Evan's. I'm going to try to semi-rhetorically ask what's happening, when I hear Goodwin himself shouting down from the top of the stairway.

Wait. _Goodwin himself_?

"Welcome back!" He calls, his voice reverberating like an echo. "Congratulations on defeating the Dark Signers, though it is unfortunate that you were unable to seal the gates of the Underworld!"

I turn over my shoulder. Even this far from Satellite, I can see the shape of the big black monster lumbering toward us. Yusei sees it, too, and shouts up to Goodwin, "Why is the King of Hell coming here?"

"This stairway is the place meant for the Divine Ritual!" Goodwin replies. "The Crimson Dragon has brought you here for this reason, as well!" He holds up a metal canister. Is... is that a _human limb_ inside of it?

"What is _that_?" I ask warily.

"It's the mark of the fifth Signer," Yusei answers, sounding displeased. "Rudger severed his arm when he decided he'd be dark instead of one of us."

Rudger was the fifth Signer? Did Yusei discover that when they dueled? But, never mind that the leader of the Dark Signers used to be light, that he severed his mark and gave it to his brother… what is Goodwin doing with it?

It's almost like Yusei reads my mind, because the next thing he says is, "What are you doing with it?"

With a smooth laugh, Goodwin sets the canister down and turns. Burned into his back, like the glistening red marks on the arms of my friends, is The Condor Line.

"Goodwin... is a Dark Signer?" Aki whispers.

Goodwin's jacket and shirt suddenly rip to shreds as his body expands, making him look like a prize fighter. Whorls of violet tattoos paint his skin like the tribal colors I saw on Kiryu's and Carly's robes. I turn away when I see Goodwin remove what I think has to be a prosthetic arm from himself; I think I already have the context clues, at this point, to know what's going to happen next and what Goodwin intends to do with his brother's arm.

Around me, not a moment later, the Signers cry out. Their free hands fly to their marks as if to stifle whatever pain they're feeling.

"W-What are you doing?!" Yusei exclaims.

"With the power of both the Crimson Dragon and the Earthbound Immortals, I will become the Ultimate God!"

"Wait," Rua says slowly, arms around his hunched-over sister. "So Goodwin was the bad guy all along?"

"So it seems," Mikage replies thinly. It's the first she's spoken in a while.

Goodwin raises his arm, and another earthquake pushes through the ground; the stairway moves higher into the air, to the point where I can't see Goodwin or any of his little details anymore. I stumble into Evan, who almost loses his balance, too.

"Okay," my brother says through his teeth. "What the _fuck_ do we do now?"

Yusei's voice burns. "We _fight_."

Jack beelines for his duel runner and slips his helmet on. "I'm there."

Crow says, "You know what? Me too. Might as well put my duel runner to good use."

Aki, beside me, seems to bristle. Whether or not it's because a Turbo Duel has been decided, I don't know. I assume she's upset at not being able to help, which I understand.

"All right." Yusei reaches for his own helmet. "Let's do it, then."

The rest of us, begrudgingly, stand back as Yusei, Jack, and Crow prepare themselves to ride up toward where a Condor geoglyph has formed up the side of the altar. I feel twitchy. What happens if they win? Will everything be fixed? Or will we still have that monster to deal with?

And what if they _lose_?

My hand latches onto Yusei's jacket, and he whirls to look at me.

"Be. _Careful_ ," I enunciate.

He offers a very bittersweet, very short-lived smile. "Maybe this time you won't have to save me."

"If you get in trouble, I _am_ coming up after you."

"Man, I really do not deserve your attempts at heroism."

"Shut up, drama queen. Go do your job."

He pulls his helmet on. I stand between Evan and Aki, and we watch Yusei lead Jack and Crow up the glyph and into the sky.

Evan rigs his duel runner to display the duel; it looks like the parameters have been set to some far-fetched Tag rules, with Goodwin set at 12,000 LP and Yusei, Jack, and Crow all sporting their own gauges of 4000 each.

"What happens if they lose?" Rua squeaks.

"Not to be morbid," Evan answers, "but we're probably all gonna die if they lose."

Aki clenches her fingers into my arm. "I wish I was helping them."

"...me too," I breathe out.

Crow takes the first turn. "I summon Blackwing - Mistral the Silver Shield in Attack Position! Since I have a Blackwing on my field, I can also summon up Blackwing - Bora the Spear! Then I'll end my turn with a facedown!"

Crow is setting up his defenses, since no one can attack first. He's being safe.

Jack draws his hand, taking the next turn. I realize that I've never seen him duel. "I summon Mad Archfiend in Attack position! Then I place a card face down and end my turn!"

Does he not have the hand to make a bigger move than that? Or maybe it's something else. I think back to the fuzzy recollections I have of Yusei's Tag Duel with Crow. Jack, Crow, and Yusei know each other. We can only hope that they know enough about each other and each other's' strategies to win.

Yusei goes last, drawing his hand and his respective card for the turn, but he doesn't immediately make any moves. His voice crackles back on Evan's speakers, asking, "Hey, Goodwin! As long as you're so convinced that we won't exist after today, would you mind answering something for me? Why did you become a Dark Signer?"

Goodwin chuckles. It sounds like a pity sort-of laugh. "The first place of battle just so happened to be the body of my brother, Rudger."

"They were brothers?" Evan remarks.

Oh. I guess… Crow and I forgot to mention that to anybody else. I keep quiet about it, because I'd rather not get in trouble for accidentally withholding important information.

"The power of both a Signer and a Dark Signer began to take over his body, and eventually he fell out to the darkness. My brother believed that by throwing away his arm bearing the Signer's mark and bequeathing it to me, fate would take care of everything else."

Goodwin and his brother… they both seem to be obsessed with the concept of destiny. Like everything has been set in stone from the beginning. I feel like it's the only thing I've ever really gathered from what minimal words I've shared with Goodwin and Rudger.

"He told me that the other Signers would someday appear, and I had to gather them together and use them to defeat him. I listened to him and left Satellite, while he stayed and triggered Zero Reverse. I obeyed the path fate had given to me and gathered the four of you together. But, following that predestined path made me realize something."

"If was allowed to live one day without a villain giving a monologue, I think I would achieve Nirvana," Evan groans, hand pressed over his eyes. It's a little bit of sunlight in this dark moment, but not quite enough to make me smile.

"Not very long ago," Goodwin continues, "I participated in a duel against my brother and lost on purpose. When he inquired why I had purposely fallen to him, I told him that there was no possible way he could win against you. Our destinies would forever remain the same, and 5,000 years from now, ten others would bear the same destiny. So, I revealed it to be my destiny to break the cycle, and that I would overcome fate and possess two gods in order to recreate this world into one where this conflict will never arise again."

"Whoa, wait," I say. "He just… took it all into his own hands? Just like that?"

"Breaking rank appears to run in the family," Evan remarks.

"Are you kidding?" Crow's voice exclaims. "You have to know how fucked that is! That you being selfish has affected all kinds of people in the worst way possible!"

"You're delusional, Goodwin!" Jack adds. "We're not going to just let you do whatever you want!"

"Besides, it isn't a god's power that tears down and builds up destiny," Yusei calls. "It's _us_ —it's human beings, and it's what we create by gathering and fighting for something!"

"Pitiful," Goodwin remarks. But what Yusei said makes me feel something strange and new.

Yusei ignores Goodwin and finally takes his turn. "I summon Max Warrior in Attack Position! Then I place one card face down and end my turn!"

Time for Goodwin to fire back. "When Monsters exist only on my opponents' field, I can summon Oracle of the Sun! I'll then summon Fire Ant Ascator from my hand! By tuning Oracle of the Sun with Fire Ant Ascator, I'm able to Synchro Summon Sun Dragon Inti!"

A four-headed dragon with a sun carving for a body spirals up into the sky. I can see it from here, even, all the way on the ground.

"Now, by removing Fire Ant Ascator from my Graveyard, I can Special Summon Weeping Idol! Then, by paying 1000 of my life points, I can summon the Dark Tuner, Dark Goddess Witaka from my hand!"

He's pulling two Synchro Summons on his first turn—and one of them is Dark. I hope those three facedowns Yusei, Crow, and Jack placed will do something.

"I tune Weeping Idol with Dark Goddess Witaka to Synchro Summon Moon Dragon Quilla!"

On the opposite side of Sun Dragon Inti, a second four-headed dragon with a carved moon for a body rises onto the field.

"Now, I place two cards face down and end my turn! As per the effect of Moon Dragon Quilla, it will destroy itself on my End Phase!"

That's… strange. I've never heard of any of these cards, not even in the tomes of cards I used to dig up all around Arcadia, so I have no idea what's in store. I do feel like it's safe to assume that anything weird won't amount to anything good, though.

The SPC count increases to 4 as Crow begins his turn. Evan, Aki, Mikage, Ushio, the twins, and I are all leaning in around Evan's duel runner. "I activate the Speed Spell - Tune Up 123! This will raise Mistral's level based on the roll of a dice!"

A picture of a die shows up on Evan's screen. I hold my breath, sending out wishes to whatever could be listening that Crow gets the number he wants. It ends up stopping on 2, which is enough to raise Mistral's level from 1 to 3.

"Now I tune Blackwing - Mistral the Silver Shield with Blackwing - Bora the Spear in order to Synchro Summon Blackwing Armor Master!"

I remember Armor Master's effect with the Wedge Counter. I think Crow must want to use it against Sun Dragon Inti.

"When I have one Blackwing already on my field, I can Special Summon one more—Blackwing - Elphin the Raven! Next, Armor Master, attack Sun Dragon Inti!"

Armor Master flies close to the idol and buries a wooden wedge into its face. On the duel screen, it shows Sun Dragon's ATK drop to 0. Armor Master survives due to its secondary effect.

"Now, Elphin the Raven, destroy Sun Dragon Inti!"

A tiny glimmering speck smashes into Sun Dragon, and the skyline brightens with orange from the resulting explosion. The ticker on Evan's duel screen showing Goodwin's LP plummets to 8800, and his Speed Counters drop to 2.

Moon Dragon Quilla suddenly surfaces on the field, and suddenly I think I know why Quilla was destroyed on Goodwin's last End Phase. I bet, since one is the sun and the other is the moon, the destruction of one will bring about the other. Maybe that means destroying Quilla will bring back Inti, too?

Goodwin chuckles, and it echoes all the way down the altar to us. "Retaliating against a god is an unforgivable offense, Crow. The man from your Daedalus Bridge legend learned this by losing his left arm."

What does _that_ mean?

"I activate the effect of Sun Dragon Inti from the Grave; I can destroy a monster that just attacked it and deal its owner damage equal to its AT!"

A red light filters onto the field, slamming forcefully down onto Crow's duel runner. I feel Evan tense up next to me. On screen, Crow's LP drops to 1800 and his Speed Counters reduce to 2.

"Let me tell you something, Crow," Goodwin says, almost contentedly. "The legendary man you believe so strongly in was a completely normal, useless human being. In order to change fate, you must become a god and surpass the humans you walk among."

Ruka and Aki cry out; I look to the side just in time to see Aki's claw mark vanish from her arm.

"W-Where did they go?" I exclaim.

Aki, scowling, points up at the altar. At Goodwin. Did he _take_ all of the Signers' marks?

"I place two cards face down and end my turn!" Crow decides.

Jack gains a Speed Counter; it's his turn now. "I'll start by setting a card face down! Then, I summon Magic Hole Golem in Defense Position! Next, by activating Magic Hole Golem's special effect, I can halve the attack of Mad Archfiend and send him to attack you directly!"

Mad Archfiend's ATK lowers to 900 and it springs forward, showering pieces of bone onto Goodwin. His LP lowers to 6900, and Crow flips a card over.

"I activate Shadow Dance! When damage was just dealt to our opponent, I can dish out 1000 more points of it to you!"

A black glow spews out onto the top of the altar; Goodwin's LP on the duel screen falls to 5900.

"I'll activate my facedown," Yusei adds, "Rising Rush! This allows me to Special Summon Junk Synchron to the field!"

"I'll end my turn there," Jack says. "Take it away, Yusei!"

"With pleasure!" He draws for his turn. "I'll tune Junk Synchron with Max Warrior in order to Synchro Summon Junk Archer!"

"Good one," Evan, next to me, says under his breath. I can't testify to any knowledge of Yusei's deck; I've touched his cards, but I haven't seen many of them in battle.

"Due to Junk Archer's special effect, I'm allowed to select one monster on your field and remove it from play for this turn!" I watch Quilla's big white-blue body zip off of the field, away into the sky, like a shooting star of rainbow light. "Then, I'm allowed to attack again!"

Junk Archer goes in for a direct attack, but Goodwin flips over a facedown. "I activate Offering to the Immortals! This will allow me to negate your attack and summon two Ceremonial Tokens, as well as add one Earthbound Immortal to my hand!"

Oh fuck. Goodwin has an Immortal too? I suppose should've expected that, given that he's still considered a Dark Signer.

Yusei doesn't react beyond setting two cards face down and throwing the field to Goodwin.

Moon Dragon Quilla returns to the field as per Junk Archer's effect, and Goodwin draws for his turn. "By releasing my Ceremonial Tokens, I can summon to the field Earthbound Immortal Wiraqocha Rasca!"

A flash of violet light brightens the sky; I put up my hands to shield my eyes. _Wiraqocha Rasca_. I've heard that name before. Rudger referenced it, I think, when we met. When the light is gone and I feel safe enough to sneak a peek at the monster, I find that it must be the size of the geoglyph. Maybe it could reach out and touch us, on the ground, with its wing, if it wanted.

For some reason, it shows on the duel screen that Wiraqocha Rasca only has 1 ATK. That worries me, but the sudden roar of the 'King of Hell' in the distance worries me more. I whirl toward the sound.

A billion specks of black begin to fly towards us, and for a moment I don't know what I'm looking at… until they get close enough for me to realize that they're huge black condors. They round the geoglyph a couple times, and then a few of them dive towards us.

Aki acts first. She untangles her arm from mine, and her duel disk springs to life. The first card she picks, she summons, and a chill runs down my spine as Aki's Black Rose Dragon rises up in front of us and reaches out for the birds in the distance. A line of its thorns spear through at least four.

Ruka copies Aki, activating her own duel disk, and summons a brilliant green dragon with opalescent wings like the facets of a church window. It fires off radiant balls of bright energy, almost instantly incinerating three or four condors at a time.

A Medium and a Physicalizer, then. I'm glad that Divine never got to her.

Evan leans heavily on his duel runner, but raises up his hand and Expels a burst of fire that catches the wing of one condor. In the attempt to be of help, I reach out to Waste whatever I can toward Aki and Ruka's dragons. I would attempt to Expel, too, if I were brave enough, but after all of that electricity… I shake the thought away.

Goodwin scoffs at us. "I activate Wiraquocha Rasca's special effect, which allows me to attack one of you directly—I think that I'll attack you, Yusei!"

My heart leaps, and I incline my head toward Evan's duel runner, vying for more sounds. More indication of what's going on up there.

It's Crow who talks next. "I activate Life Exchange! This directs your Immortal's attack to _me_ instead!"

A blast of light knocks Crow's duel runner off of the geoglyph; I look up, trying to follow the shape of his runner in the air, my heart in my throat. Though I was preparing to try to Waste, even from so far away, I see his runner glide out over the open air. Did… did he put wings on his duel runner? He flies straight through Moon Dragon Quilla, and it shatters. Probably with the help of Life Exchange.

Sun Dragon Inti suddenly appears out of nowhere, which confirms my earlier fear of their exchanging effects.

Crow flips another card. "I activate Blackwing - Bombardment, to release Blackwing Armor Master—" his voice cuts off as he hits the circuit, sending sparks of purple fire cascading down from the side of the glyph. Did… did he crash?

" _Crow_!" I blurt.

Goodwin laughs and sets two cards.

"W-We have to help him!" I say.

"How?" Evan groans. "I'm out of commission at the moment! Plus, we only have one duel runner, and we're already using it to figure out what the fuck is going on!"

"W-We can't… just leave him there!"

"Silvan!" Aki shouts. Black Rose Dragon reaches out toward me, curling a thorny vine toward my face. I draw back from it at first, until the dragon extends a vibrant wing toward me.

 _Oh_. "W-Will that work?"

"Just trust me! I can do it!"

Hand shaking, I accept the curled end of Black Rose Dragon's vine; it whisks me upward, onto its back, and I barely have enough time to cling to its neck before it breaks off into the sky. I swear I think I hear Evan exclaim, " _Wait, fuck, Silvan_!" Boy, I thought traveling by helicopter was bad.

Before I know it, though, Black Rose Dragon has a vine wrapped around my waist, and it lifts me downward, onto ground made of fire. It lingers there, as if watching over me as I stumble across the translucent floor toward Crow, who's been pinned underneath his duel runner.

"H-Hey, I get to be saved, too?" He laughs, even though he's in no position to be joking. "Cool!"

"Be quiet, and hold still," I order. I Waste his duel runner upward, trying to get it off of him and far enough off of the ground for me to push it right side up again. "C-Can you stand?"

"Uh?"

"Right. Stupid question." I lift him up and help him hobble toward his duel runner, and with some difficulty, I get him sitting down on the back of it.

"If you're driving, be careful with my baby!" Crow wails.

"You dented it up falling, anyways! We can worry about repairs when we might not be dead!"

The controls aren't that much different than Hiraeth's, but when I tap the accelerator, I can almost immediately feel the frame difference between Crow's runner and Hiraeth. Hiraeth feels sleek and able to fit into tight spaces, just kind enough to me to start out gentle and appreciate from there. Crow's feels so aerodynamic that we shoot forward with just a tiny tap of my foot against the accelerator. Its reaction time is impressively instant.

"Careful, careful!" He cries.

"I'm not going to kill you, I promise!" I say. I can drive this, it'll be fine. We'll be fine.

As I start down the geoglyph, looking for a path down to the ground again, I see Goodwin's Immortal tilt its head and take aim at a white duel runner a little ways forward from us.

"J-Jack!" Crow blurts.

I don't know what's happening, but I speed up a little, egged on by the desperation in Crow's voice.

A blast rips along the geoglyph, towards Jack, and I don't know what to do other than try to speed ahead of him. Try to take the attack, myself. After all those years of electricity and relentless duel damage, what's a little bit of otherworldly light?

I stretch up in front of Crow, too, to try to protect him. The attack burns when it hits, sending my body arching away from the fire. Something knocks into Crow's duel runner. The momentum of the attack blows us backward, and it knocks Jack straight into the wall of the glyph.

I open my eyes and try to unlock my knees—I dug my heels into the ground to try and stop us—and I find Evan on the ground with us, his hair singed, lips bleeding. Black Rose Dragon flits down, back toward Aki, from where it was lingering along the side of the geoglyph.

"I guess," he breathes, splattering blood on the ground, "we had the same idea."

"I guess," I parrot. I, too, taste blood.

"...you saved me?" Jack asks hollowly.

I meet his eyes. "Carly took a chance on you," I say. "So will I."

He blinks owlishly at me.

"...come on, pal, let's get you up." Evan jostles himself up off of the ground, leaning heavily on his good leg, and reaches out to try to heave Jack up off of the ground, too. Both of them, I think, are limping, but together they manage to heave Jack's runner upright again.

"Can you ride?" I ask.

My brother swings into Jack's duel runner ahead of Jack. "I'll make do with one leg. Jack has another one he can use."

"What about Yusei?" Crow asks.

"We'll come back up for him if we need to," I say.

"It's up to him now, anyways," Evan adds. "Have either of you seen your LP lately? You're down to literally 1 point."

"Yikes," Crow hisses. "Okay, okay. Let's go, then."

I take the lead, trying to keep slow to let Evan stay on my tail. The only thing I'm worried about right now is us all getting out of this safely. If Jack and Crow stayed up here, they would still be in danger. If Evan and I can get them out, then we free up Yusei. Now, he can stay focused on fighting.

Eventually, Evan and I find a way back down to earth, and as we pull to a stop beside Evan's duel runner, the others scramble to help us. Mikage and Ushio beeline to help Evan and Jack dismount, and Aki comes to help me lift a bright red Crow off of the back of his duel runner.

Crow gives Jack a thumbs up. "Hospital time after this, am I right?"

"What a _horrible_ thought," Jack says, but I could swear I saw him smile, if only for just a moment.

"Where are we?" I ask Aki. "How is Yusei doing?"

"Yusei summoned Stardust Dragon and started activating Jack and Crow's traps," she says. "Did you all plan that?"

"Nah, Yusei's just… easy to read, if you know him well enough," Crow fills in. "If something seems like it could be useful, Yusei can make use of it."

"With him, everything has a use," Jack adds. "It's better being safe than sorry."

Together, we crowd around Evan's duel runner again and try to keep following whatever turn this is. By the sound of it, it's one of Goodwin's.

"I activate a facedown! Scrubbed Raid! This Trap can end the Battle Phase by sending a card on the field to the Graveyard!"

Goodwin flips his own facedown. "I activate Meteor Prominence! By discarding 2 cards in my hand, I can deal 2000 points of damage to my opponent!"

"I trigger another facedown, Joint Future! By sending one card in my hand to the Graveyard, I can negate the activation of a Spell or Trap!"

"I activate the second effect of Meteor Prominence! By skipping my next Draw Phase, I can add it back from my Graveyard to my hand!"

"I guess I'll activate the secondary effect of Joint Future—I can shuffle your negated card back into your deck!"

Goodwin, seeming irritated, ends his turn. I sit on the ground on one side of Crow, chewing on my thumbnail. Yusei has only 1 LP, and Goodwin has 5900. It looks like it's Turn 16 now.

"Do you really want to become a god, Goodwin?" Yusei asks.

Goodwin laughs. "I can't truly become a god until I surpass my brother!"

"No, I don't believe that! People have things they never forget! You still care about your brother! I don't think you're trying to defy fate! I think you're trying to go against it _with_ Rudger instead of opposite of him!"

Suddenly… around me, I see Jack, Ruka, and Aki reach out, as if offering the marks on their arms. Is this taking a turn for the better?

"What's happening?" Goodwin roars.

"The Crimson Dragon has decided on who controls fate now!" Yusei tells him. "Because Stardust Dragon is on my field, I can summon Stardust Xiaolong from my Grave to the field! Then, I summon Majestic Dragon from my hand and tune it together with Stardust Dragon and Stardust Xiaolong in order to Synchro Summon Majestic Star Dragon!"

A blinding light crests over the geoglyph, but for some reason I don't have to close my eyes against it. A brilliant white dragon emerges from a sphere of pale, glittering starlight and faces Goodwin's Immortal with an almost _royally_ inclined head.

Behind us, I know that the King of Hell is nearing the altar. I'm kneeling beside Evan's duel runner with Jack and Crow, intent on hearing what happens next, but I know that if I were to turn and look behind me, I would see it looming over us. I can feel the temperature rising, and I smell something like oil.

"Due to the effect of Majestic Star Dragon, the effect of Wiraquocha Rasca is negated! Next, I activate Synchro Baton; since there are four Synchro Monsters in our Graveyards, I can multiply Majestic Star Dragon's ATK by 4 and attack you directly!"

A ball of energy forms at the mouth of the white dragon, and the pressure in the air makes my ears pop, even from this far away. It shoots it through Wiraquocha Rasca, and the sky illuminates as a red dragon snakes out of the disintegrating form of Goodwin's Immortal. Red beams of light shoot out of the clouds and overcome the King of Hell, where he lingers behind us; he fades into a zillion small specks of black dust.

The red dragon in the sky swirls around the geoglyph, seeming to swallow it. It rushes down toward us, leaving behind a red duel runner and its rider before it disappears into the distance. A limping Crow, Jack, and Evan trail behind Rua and Ruka as they make a beeline for Yusei.

And me? I crumple. My back hits the pavement and I wish I could sink into the earth and sleep until sleep becomes obsolete. Aki dives for me. "S-Silvan?!"

"I am so tired," I breathe. "Somebody please let me rest."

Suddenly Evan flops onto the ground, face first, next to us. "Amen, baby sister."

"We're twins, you dolt."

"You're baby until proven not-baby."

"If I could move my arms, I would fight you."

"Silvan?" A voice asks.

I crane my neck up to squint at Yusei. Still a boy from a beautiful painting, even with his face smeared with dirt and smoke. There's a second when I'm wondering which of us is supposed to talk first, and then he—follows my lead. He and Evan are both sprawled on the ground around me.

Crow heaves a long sigh and says, "All right, fine, me too," before flopping down on the other side of Yusei. Eventually, we're all on the ground, even a wide-eyed and speechless Mikage and Ushio. I watch the stars begin to blink out as the sky starts to turn pink.

There's a long silence, and then Yusei says, "Hey, I never want to do that ever again."

I think it's safe to laugh. From the sound of the air and the sudden lightness in it, everyone else feels the same.

Yusei reaches for me—put his hand against the base of my throat—and I curl my weak fingers into his shirt, damp with sweat or blood or something above his stitches.

 _Over_. It's _finally_ over.


	31. Some Friendlier Sky

Our place is little—two rooms, one bathroom, and the garage downstairs. But it's _ours_. And it doesn't feel real, especially not on move-in day.

Evan's things and mine only rounded off to about four boxes, and he carried them all on the back of his runner, tangled up in his scavenging net. Aki was sad to see us go, especially since she'd gotten so used to us staying with her that it was almost like we became part of her family. Even her twitchy, admittedly anxious father got used to having three psychics running around his house instead of just one. But, it's okay, because we're only five or ten minutes away from her, and I'm seeing her again today, anyways.

The square is small, with a coffee shop and a convenience store on the corner, within walking distance, with a clock tower in the middle where the landlord lives. Our neighbors on both sides are couples, one a little pair of elderly women who I see bringing each other flowers every other day, and the other a man and a woman with a kid who can't be more than three or four.

The landlady is a woman who knows Martha, which means she expects our rent exactly on time. Otherwise, she'll probably get Martha to come smack my brother and me upside the head, among other things. But Evan and I were careful not to look for a place to move into until we had amassed enough money to not have to worry about being late for a while.

He and I both work two jobs; well, Evan technically works a third. We both started out with full-time jobs at a repair center off the main drag downtown, and I work part-time in the stacks at the municipal library near Duel Academia. It's a quiet, pretty place with vaulted ceilings and lamps lining the walls. I'm good at knowing exactly where certain books go back to without having to be reminded, and I can always check out as many things as I want. Evan has a second job working the graveyard shift at the convenience store near the apartment every couple of days, and he leaves his cell number on bulletins in coffee shops and grocery stores advertising himself as a repairman for anyone who needs one.

At night, I usually lie awake staring at the ceiling for a while, wondering what's real and what isn't. I always leave my door open, but sometimes it still feels like Divine will appear and walk right in. When I can't sleep, which is more often than not, I put on a coat and shoes and I take a walk outside. Just because I can. Because, then, I know it's real.

Evan does his best to try to make me feel comfortable, and he lets me do things like make the coffee in the morning and go outside to get the mail because I could never do those things before. I get good at making myself sandwiches for lunch, and we stand at the stove together after work so he can teach me how to boil pasta or set a timer or chop vegetables.

Our duel runners sit next to each other in the garage, and we gradually start adding furniture to it so that it no longer looks like a big empty concrete room with a kitchenette in the corner. Today, it has a sofa and a coffee table and a long table with a lamp over by the stairs where Evan has started building us a desktop computer.

He builds me several bookshelves to put in my room, where I can stack all sorts of books and things, and he lets me keep the toolcase by my bedroom door, out in the open. No one here is going to see it and threaten to take it away from me.

It doesn't feel over. I don't know if it ever will. Evan keeps looking for ways to make me feel better, to get me used to this. To try and make me _better_.

At the same time, in the wake of all that went down with the Dark Signers, Aki shows me a bunch of photos that Misty mailed her from a trip she took to Paris. We learn that the Dark Signers live again, though the Goodwin brothers are nowhere to be found. Most of us are certain, at least, that neither of them were given a chance to start anew.

I start a search for Kiryu, looking in every phone book and newspaper and searching faces in crowds to bring light back to my brother who's trying to bring light back to me. Aki and I both introduce ourselves to Carly Nagisa, the former Dark Signer who doesn't want to remember dying at the hands of mine and Aki's abuser. We begin to have coffee with her every Tuesday.

Today is Sunday—no work today. Aki called everyone up and asked to get together for the first time in months. And I mean _everyone_.

Rua and Ruka have been on summer break, and for lack of more things to do, they were the first ones to respond, begging for something fun to do. Crow, who's now considerably lower on Evan's shitlist than he has been, agreed to tag along, too. Jack, who's still as grumpy as an old man, but considerably less emotionally unattached, agreed to come after being constantly poked at by Crow. After Goodwin's death, or 'disappearance,' as the Bureau has slated it for the public, Yusei has shouldered the responsibility of Daedalus Bridge's completion. He's been very silent as of late, very busy, to my brother's disdain, but contacted Aki to tell her that he'll try to be there.

That's everyone's favorite word nowadays. _Try_. Whether or not we were all somewhat involved in trying to save the world, we're still eight people who barely know each other. I'm what's connecting Aki to my brother—he connects us to Yusei, who connects us to Jack, Crow, and the twins. And all this time keeping to ourselves hasn't done very much to strengthen whatever bonds we have. How do you rationalize saving the world, exactly? It's been strange enough for me to move into a place of my own.

Aki may have been the one who suggested that we all hang out, but she still has a very basic level of trust in the others. We spent enough nights up, talking for hours on end about real things, while we were staying together, but even _we_ still have a ways to go. She still doesn't know how to feel about Yusei, how to rationalize everything with Divine, how to process that, right now, she and I technically have more 'friends' than we've ever had in our entire lives.

She likes Evan, though. She says he reminds her a lot of me. Evan's grown protective enough to act as if she were his sister, too. I don't know if he'll ever reach a point with the others to tell them everything about Kiryu, but I think right now he's more likely to someday reach that point with her than the others. He says she's too good a girl for most other people, and he's right. I think he's as eager to see her today as I am.

So, as is usual in the mornings, I make coffee in my pjs and wait for Evan, who always gets dressed before he comes downstairs.

"No goggles," I say when I see him fumbling down the stairs in a tee shirt and boardshorts.

"I didn't want to get them wet," he gripes.

"I'm wearing my stabilizer, it'll be fine."

"There's also sand," he complains. "Do we still have cereal?"

"Yeah, but we probably have to get more pretty soon."

"That's okay. We can get some today after we get home." He gets the cereal box off of the shelf over the stove and goes toward the fridge for milk. Home is such a nice word, strange to hear, but I love it when he says it. "Go get dressed, we still have to go pick Aki up."

"Okay, okay." I haul myself up the ladder and into the loft; my room is the first door on the right, next to the bathroom and across the hall from Evan's room. The door's open as always, but I have to shut it and my curtain before I peel myself out of my pajamas and put on the swimsuit I bought last week. Thank the gods for Aki, because I've never had a swimsuit before this, and I probably wouldn't have had any idea what to get if she hadn't come with me.

I pull on jean shorts and a white shirt to wear over it, and the best shoes I can think of to put on are tennis shoes, no socks. I can't be the only one who's new at this, can I?

I slide back down the ladder, my hairbrush between my teeth, and start pulling it through my hair. "I don't even know where we're going."

"That's okay. We'll have Aki with us, and she gave me the directions."

"Does everyone else know where we're going?"

"I don't see how it'd be bad if they didn't."

"Be nice," I scoff.

"Don't tell me what to do," he whines. He slides my coffee cup to me across the kitchen island, and I put my brush and hair tie down on the counter to pick up my cup. "As far as I'm concerned, I only like you guys, anyways."

"You like Yusei," I point out.

"I like Yusei when he's not a human-shaped mass of neglect."

"It can't be his fault that Goodwin willed the bridge to him. Besides, it's good for the Satellite kids for it to get completed. If anyone's going to be in charge of it, I'm glad it's him."

"I get it, but the job's nine to five. His place is a thirty second walk away from ours. And we moved in here before he did. If he had time to do that, I don't think it'd kill him to say stop in and say hi."

"I don't know, it wouldn't be the first time Anxiety Boy was too talked-out to pretend to be sociable."

"He doesn't have to talk to us, he could just come over to take a nap on the couch, for all I care." Evan comes around behind me, picks up my brush, and starts pulling it through to the ends of my hair. "He knows me better than to think I'm going to make him socialize if he doesn't want to."

"I guess that's fair," I say. "We might see him today."

"Yeah, _might_." He ties my hair up into a ponytail and sets the brush back down. "I love a good peradventure."

"Your saltiness is showing," I say.

"That's me, half boy, half salt." He puts his cereal bowl into the sink. "Finish that cup already, we're going to be late."

I packed my backpack with all of the things Aki suggested we bring, so it's by the door and ready to go. I sling it onto my back, and Evan shoves the garage door open so that we can get Hiraeth and Vertigo out into the street.

I've gotten pretty good at riding, to the point where I can kind of stop thinking when I'm on the road. I started practicing riding every day after the battle. Some nights, I'll practice instead of trying to sleep. I'm so used to Hiraeth at this point that I can save myself from falling on the rare days when I lean too far to make a turn. It's less stressful, more relaxing, now.

Aki lives just outside of the Tops, uptown, in a little quiet neighborhood full of big, pretty houses on hills that get a view of the lights that come on when the city gets dark. She used to tell me that her childhood home was big, dark, and lonely, and I finally understood when I saw it for myself. Everything was spacious and made of dark wood, and the walls would creak, it seemed, if you so much as breathed. Lying awake in that house was ten thousand times more unsettling than it is in the apartment.

Evan waits out front while I run up to the front door, ring the bell, and wait. Aki answers in a matter of moments, wearing a floaty floral dress and carrying a bag over her shoulder. She looks fresh and beautiful, as per the usual, and the first thing she does is reach her arms out to hug me. The gesture makes all sorts of wonderful, warm feelings bubble up in my chest.

"Morning," she says, her hands skimming both sides of my face. "Are you excited?"

"I-I guess so? New things make me less excited, more anxious."

"We'll have a great time. I haven't been in a really long while, but I know it'll be relaxing for all of us."

"Hope so. I don't think I know how to relax."

"That's okay. We have the whole day for you to start figuring it out."

Aki locks the front door behind her, and hand in hand we cross back through the patio and into the driveway where Evan and I are parked.

Evan dismounts to give her a hug, then takes her bag to strap onto the back of his duel runner. "You certainly look more than ready to go," he says.

"It's my best friend's first time at the beach," Aki retorts. "I'm going to be prepared or I'm not going."

Evan takes the lead out of Aki's driveway—since he apparently knows where we're going—and Aki rides with me, her arms strewn around my waist and her skirt pinned between her knees to keep it from getting caught on anything. I can feel her helmet digging into that same point midway down my spine. She's still afraid of riding, and I know because every time she's ridden with me, I have to coax her into opening her eyes long after we've finally stopped.

I used to joke that it was because she didn't fully trust my riding ability, but now I'm fairly certain that it's her sudden aversion to pain that's frightening her the most. She's afraid of falling, and I always assure her that we won't, but it doesn't change her reactions much. Sometimes when I take really tight turns and she's on behind me, I feel that familiar spike of heat in the air, some shift under my tires, before it's suddenly gone and Aki has reigned her knee-jerk response back in.

That's been the story for a while now. In the more recent aftermath of the Dark Signers, it took Aki a long time to even think about trying to use her powers. She didn't pick her cards up for a whole month because she was afraid of hurting anybody; afraid of continuing to succumb to what Divine turned her into. She's used to using other people as stepping stones to keep herself from getting hurt—the dog-eat-dog mentality Divine carried—and it means so much to me that she's _trying_ to get better.

As for me and my powers, Evan keeps trying to get me to Expel. The last time I did it was the last time I saw Divine, and I can't stomach the thought of exuding all of that electricity again. I don't even know how much I have in me. I just know that, right now, I'm scared of finding out.

I keep following Evan down the highway to the west, Aki clinging to me the whole way, until we're twisting around sheer cliffs overlooking water. It takes everything in me to remember that Aki is at my back, and not to look out next to us. I've never seen the water this close before.

We keep following the road as it curves downward, and at one point we cut off of the highway and onto a dirt path that goes straight through a series of weathered cliffs. At some point, the barricade to our right breaks, and we stop to dismount and roll our duel runners onto the strip of sand winding back into the cliffs.

"I used to come to this beach all the time," Aki explains as she helps me shove Hiraeth through the sand. "The beach on the other end of the coast always has too many tourists on it. Even only some locals know that this is here."

"Well, good," Evan remarks. "Let's not have fans and reporters bombarding our beach day."

It's—easy to forget my friends' prominence. Besides the events of the Fortune Cup, the whole city knows the names and faces of the Signers. Maybe not every detail of what they did, the Immortals and the marks and all of that, but they know. They know, predominantly, that Yusei Fudo, Jack Atlas, and Aki Izayoi saved Neo Domino. Ruka, being 12, has secured herself at least some anonymity, but apparently she's still very popular at school.

Speaking of Ruka, we spot her and Rua on a blanket when we come around a corner, beneath an arch of rock. Both of them come running when they see us. Ruka goes to Aki first; she and Ruka have been talking a lot, I think. She and Aki have plenty in common, and I think it helps that they're also both Signers, beyond being psychic.

"Do you need any help?" Ruka asks.

"Ahh, I think we're okay," Evan says. "Are we all that's here?"

"So far, yeah!" Rua chirps. "But we haven't been here that long."

"I'm glad, I would have hated for you two to be here alone for very long. We're the only ones here."

Rua puffs out his chest. "Ah, don't worry about us, Evan! We can kick anybody's butt!"

Ruka puts her head in her hands. My brother stifles a laugh. I wonder if Evan sees as much of us in the twins as I do.

We park Hiraeth and Vertigo a little ways up the beach, under the shade of one of the cliffs, and Aki and the twins help my brother and me set out more blankets and an umbrella that Aki brought. It's funny watching my brother trying to figure out how to help set up; he's been swimming and he's been to the coast in Satellite, he's said, but I'm not sure he's ever really been to the beach.

And I've never even been anywhere like this.

After everything is, for the most part, set up, Rua and Ruka pull Evan down to the water with them. I sit on a blanket beside Aki, moving Evan's discarded shirt aside so that I can sit as close to her as possible.

"Sleep at all last night?" She asks.

"A couple hours," I admit. "Maybe I can take a nap here, or something."

"Did the doctor say anything about helping you with that?"

"Yeah, I'm supposed to get a prescription on Wednesday when I go back."

"I wish you'd do it sooner," Aki puffs.

"It's no big deal, I promise." I curl my hand around the crook of her arm. "I'm used to this, two more days isn't an issue."

"You know I hate it when you say that."

"I know," I sigh. "Tell me how you're doing. Therapy going okay?"

"For the most part, yeah. It's hard to talk about things, though."

"I know," I say again. "I'm going to start going when I can, too."

"Good. It's hard, but it does help."

I rest my head against her shoulder. "I'm glad it does."

"Me too. So help me, I'm going to get better and I'm going to get past this, even if it kills me."

"We'll go together," I say.

"Gladly."

I turn when I hear the sound of a duel runner engine, and Aki and I put our arms up over our faces as Crow and Jack's duel runners skid to a stop somewhere behind us, spraying sand over us and the blankets.

"Hey!" I shout. "Don't be dicks!"

Crow shucks his helmet off. "Sorry! We were racing, and—"

"And you sprayed sand all over us," Aki says sharply. "There's barely any traction in sand, you could have hurt yourselves or us. I have half a mind to smack you both upside the head."

Crow, a little red in the face, replies, "At least give me a head start toward the shoreline, sweetheart."

Aki stares at him, lips pursed, cheeks pink. Crow stifles a smile like he thinks he's gotten away with something, and says, "Oh, look, is that Evan? I'm gonna go talk to Evan."

He kicks his shoes off, peels his jacket and his shirt away, and goes jogging down the sand, presumably, to go hide behind my brother.

Aki stands and puts her sunglasses on the bridge of my nose. "I'm gonna drown him, one of these days."

"Be nice," I say.

"I'll drown him a little bit," she clarifies, shimmying her floral dress up over her head. "He'll be slightly waterlogged."

" _Slightly waterlogged_ ," I parrot. " _Please_ be nice."

She hums, almost uncaringly, and flounces down toward the water, a pretty spot of cream and roses reflecting red onto the water.

"Someday they'll get a room," Jack, behind me, scoffs.

"Someday Crow will figure out not to push her buttons," I laugh. "He'll land lower on her list than Yusei. Speaking of which, where is _he_?"

"Beats me. He was somewhere this morning. I wouldn't put it past him if he forgets the rest of us are here today."

"Oh well. His loss," I say.

There's a bit of silence, and I listen to the sound of waves and my friends a little further down the shore. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to speak to Jack, or wait for him to go join with everybody else? We don't know each other. We've never had a real conversation outside of small talk... at least, recently. And me Wasting him and shouting at him doesn't count.

Suddenly he says, "I never thanked you for what you did for me during that last fight."

I glance at him through my periphery. "...oh."

"You were right about me, then, at least," he continues. "I was selfish, and I am. I did a lot of shitty things to people who were my friends, and I'm trying to remedy it."

"I'm sure that means a lot to Yusei, Crow, and Evan."

"I hope it does. I didn't deserve you or Evan taking that blow for me. I deserve that faith about as much as I deserve Carly's."

"...she adores you, you know," I say. "By you talking to me like this, Jack, I know there are parts of you that aren't near the person you pretend to be. She saw those parts and fell for them. I don't think you should take that love or that faith for granted."

"She told me she sees you and Aki often."

"We share a trauma," I tell him. "And I think it's only fair that the three of us have each other to talk about it with, even though I know she doesn't want to talk about the Dark Signer stuff."

"She pretends not to remember," he says. "I think it's how she copes. I want to help her as much as I can, but I'm afraid trying to be with her will bring all of that bad shit back."

"Just because she went through all of that for you," I respond, "doesn't mean she went through it because of you."

He exhales. "Fine, I guess that's fair."

"Do whatever you think is best for both of you," I say. "I know my advice isn't exactly superb, especially since you and I don't really know each other—"

"No," he says, "it's okay. You're a lot like your brother, partly-minus the insufferable attitude."

"Oh, _you're_ talking?"

He smirks. "Fine."

Crow, down from the shoreline, starts waving his arms and shouting, I assume, to get Jack's attention. Jack breathes a sigh and starts off down the beach, peeling his shirt off as he goes.

"Hey, sorry about Wasting you that one time!" I shout after him.

"Don't worry about it!" He shouts back. "I'll get you back for it!"

That makes me sputter a laugh. I watch him break off between Crow and my brother, spraying water up between them.

Evan's been speaking a lot more with Crow recently, and I've even noticed him being purposefully cordial to Jack. He's trying, too, and I think that days like these help. I like watching him be happy and learn to try to forget about things that happened in the past. It's very easy, after all, to forget that he lived a childhood of losing.

He sleeps longer than I do—much, much longer, I think, to the point where it's hard to wake him up sometimes. He's as tired as I am, mostly, though he sleeps three times as much as I do. I'm just glad that, so far, nightmares won't touch him.

I lie back against the blanket, close my eyes against the light, and push Aki's sunglasses up onto my head to let the sun kiss my face. I love the warmth and the way it feels. It's wonderful knowing that I can go outside and feel the weather, that I can open my windows, that I can exist outside of myself and outside of something stationary. I don't know what tomorrow will look like, what it will feel like, but that's a different sensation than it used to be. The fear has edged backward to let in this nice, pleasant, sleepy sense of serenity.

"Well, you look comfortable."

That's the first time I've heard his voice in a while, but it makes me smile. I peek an eye open. "You came."

"Well, I usually try to run errands or sleep through Sundays," Yusei says, "but napping on the beach sounded nice."

He sinks down beside me. I arch up, leaning on my elbows, and rest my head against his arm. "How are you?"

"Exhausted," he sighs. "But everything is coming along nicely. And, when it's done, everyone in Satellite will be able to come over here. It's always nice to do work that you know will be worth it in the end."

I give a content little hum as a reply.

"I'm surprised you're not down closer to the water with everyone else," he says.

"I can't swim," I confess. "At least, I don't know if I can."

"We'll have to remedy that sometime soon, then." He traces a swirling pattern on my knee. "You look much better."

"Evan's been trying to make me eat more and more every day," I tell him. "I'm not used to feeling hungry as often as I do now."

"That's good. That means your body is starting to fix itself."

"I started going to a doctor to try and see how far I have until I function normally, and she said I'll know that I'm normal when I start bleeding. Which hasn't happened yet, so I still don't know where I am."

"You can't be too far off," he says. "Your face has a lot more color to it, and your cheekbones don't look so hollow anymore. You just look kind of tired."

"Sleeping is the issue," I sigh. "I'm supposed to get pills for that soon."

"Have you thought about going to see a therapist?" He asks. "Maybe that'll help."

"Yeah, but I have to find one that's in my price range," I tell him. "I need to balance it with rent and utilities and the doctor visits and grocery shopping…"

"Do you need help? I can—"

"Don't spend your money on me, idiot," I say. "I'll just keep saving as much as I can until I can pay for it, it isn't a big deal."

"I just want you to get better."

"I've been through worse, Yusei."

"I know," he exhales. "I wish it wasn't like that."

"I mean, it isn't anymore. If that helps."

He sighs. "I'm sorry I haven't been good at keeping in touch. I've been meaning to check in with you more than I do, but I forget to do a lot of things recently. Everything just kind of feels like a dream."

"I know what you mean. Evan said you can come nap on our couch, if you want."

"He's probably upset at me, isn't he?"

"When _isn't_ he?"

Yusei laughs a little. "That's fair. But I can't blame him for wanting to be in the loop about everything, it's the way he is. He needs constant reassurance."

"I guess it runs in the family," I say.

"...is Aki doing all right?"

"You two are being a little more civil to each other, hm?"

"Guess so," he says. "We're all bound together at this point, so it makes sense to try to be friends. Also, I am still allowed to care about people despite their feelings about me."

"I know... I just didn't know where the two of you were. I just know that she's in a better place now than she was," I tell him. "And she's definitely trying to get better, just like I am. I'm really proud of her."

"Does it feel real to you?" He asks. "Being here? Being two whole months out from all of that?"

"No," I admit. "Did you know that Mikage contacted me a couple weeks ago? Divine is alive, and they detained him and stuck him in the Detention Center. I don't know anything beyond that, and I really don't remember much of that day, but I remember telling her to keep eyes on him at all times. Make sure he's in a position where he doesn't have the means to get out. The world doesn't need people like him roaming around."

"He's not going to come back ever," Yusei says. "If the Bureau is at all smart, they'll keep him locked up forever. Or they'll kill him."

"I don't want him dead," I confess. "Sometimes I think that the only real way to be rid of him is for him to die, but… I don't want that. I want him to know what Aki and I felt. And I want him to die, old and shriveled up, feeling that."

"That's fair, it's what he deserves. For taking your life away from you, he deserves a lot worse."

"I think I'll find time to be more bitter about it when I figure out how to feel," I say. "Like you said… this all feels like a dream. And I feel very hollow."

"You don't have to recover overnight, Silvan. You can take as long as you need. Your whole life, if you need it."

"I know," I admit. "...I like that name. I like it when you all say it."

"What?" There's a smile in his voice. "' _Silvan_ '?"

"I remember Goodwin telling me that my father gave it to me," I say. "That he named me after his home, in the north, and all of its forests. I still don't know whether or not Divine replaced it because he didn't know it, or because my father gave it to me… but I like it. I like the way it sounds. I don't ever want to be called anything else."

"And you don't have to be," he says. "You're two months free, and still going strong."

"I like that word, too. Free." Not safe. Not protected or guarded. _Free_.

"Me too."

"...how's your side?"

"Better, for the most part." He leans away from me to untuck his shirt from his jeans and expose his side to me—I can see the ridges in his skin where the stitches were. All that's left of the injury now is that a jagged scar, pale in comparison to the warmth of the skin around it. "It still hurts a little bit if I bend too far that way, but otherwise, I'm all right. What about yours?"

"As present as ever." I peel my tee shirt off; in my swimsuit, there's no place for the electrode scars to hide. "I was thinking I might get them tattooed over someday."

"Really? What do you think you'd get?"

"I'm not sure yet. I think I'll figure it out when I get around to it."

From the shoreline, I hear shouting. Yusei and I turn to look down toward the water, where I suddenly see Jack, Crow, and Evan bolting toward us.

"Oh God _why_ ," Yusei groans; he looks like he wants to scramble to his feet and run, but he gets up to do it a little too late. Jack, Crow, and Evan practically tackle him to keep him from running, and then they're carrying him down toward the shore. Yusei throws his jacket and his gloves at me, and I have to run halfway down the beach to pick them up and watch as Jack, Crow, and Evan throw Yusei into the water.

There's a lot of screaming and laughing from my friends, and as soon as Yusei comes back up out of the water, he starts sweeping water at Jack, Crow, and Evan, who I've never seen smile like they are now.

It does feel like a dream. All of this feels as fleeting and far away as Arcadia does. Happiness like this can't last forever, can it? Or is that my mind searching for a worst case scenario, as per the usual? Is it possible for my heart to settle enough to let me live like this, with people who could be my friends, and slowly try to mend myself back together?

I toss Yusei's jacket back toward the blanket and kick my shoes off so that I can go running down into the water, knowing that there's not a person present that will let me drown.

•••

\- PART 1 - CLEAN OUT OF AIR - _END_.


	32. Lined With Palm Trees

_**A/N: Hey there friends! Sorry for the long hiatus! It's been a bitch trying to write lately, but I do fully intend to finish this story.**_

 _ **Without further ado, enjoy!**_

* * *

\- PART 2 - ENDLESS SUMMER AFTERNOON -

•••

"Okay, and then what?"

"Oh, I went shopping with Aki, that's pretty much it. But I don't get paid until tomorrow so I guess I did more looking than buying."

"Remind me who Aki is again?"

"Tall-ish, psychic, red hair? The one I'm super gay for."

"I'm not sure that last part was entirely necessary, Silvan."

"Listen, I'd say 'bisexual,' but I'm almost positive that you'd accuse me of having one _more_ mental illness."

"Don't be ridiculous." Audrey clicks her pen. "I have no interest in psychoanalyzing your sexuality unless it was a direct result of your trauma."

"What an absolutely awful thing to say."

"You brought it up, not me. What else did you do?"

"I _said_ that was pretty much it."

"All right. And your plans today?"

"Nothing special," I say. "I had kickboxing before this."

"Work later?"

"Yeah, I'm closing."

"How are those going? Your jobs?"

"Okay, I guess," I tell her, leaning my chin on my hand. "I'm supposed to get a raise at the garage next week."

"That's good." Audrey pushes her thick brown-rimmed glasses higher onto the bridge of her nose. She's a smartly dressed lady a good ten years older than me, dark hair pulled back into a ponytail. I've been talking to her for almost three months now, and I don't think I've ever seen her wear her hair down. "How's your sleep schedule?"

"Shitty as ever."

"Are you taking your pills?"

"No, I told you they make the night terrors worse."

She scribbles furiously on her legal pad. "How long did you sleep last night?"

"Couple hours."

"I may try another prescription on you for that. Have you tried taking your pills before bed?

"Yeah, plenty. My brain just never shuts up."

"Well, I'll look for something else to prescribe, then. And let me know if I'm overloading you on the medication. Don't stop telling me what is and isn't working. Have you had any attacks recently?"

"No, nothing but the night stuff. The night's the worst."

"Is it the dark? Have you been keeping your door open?"

"Yeah, but it's just, like… shadows. And noises and things. I always feel like something is watching me."

"Put a little light in the hall, see if that helps. If you can see, your imagination might have a tougher time overreacting. And, I might invest in some noise-cancelling headphones, or earbuds, or something. Remember what I said about classical music? Try listening to it when you're trying to fall asleep."

"Okay, I'll look for some today," I tell her.

"Good. I recommend Mozart if you're trying to relax." Her eyes are still glued to the legal pad. "Reading anything this week?"

"Yeah, I picked up _The Divine Comedy_ on Monday, I'm a quarter of the way through _Purgatorio_."

"Diving into poetry, hm?"

"I've read all of the prose I could find already," I say thinly.

"If you haven't already, after you're done with that, you might look at Homer or Shakespeare."

"Ahh, I read a Shakespeare compendium last month. And I have _The Odyssey_ on my queue for next week."

"For poetic playwrights, then, you should look at Aristophanes and Virgil. _The Aeneid_ is a wonderful companion to Homer, and Aristophanes wrote quite a few early comedies."

"Can you write those names down for me?"

"Of course. Maybe you'll go into philosophers afterward."

"You're trying to save my life here, Aud, not end it."

"What have I told you about joking about suicide during our sessions?" She says blankly.

"Oh, come on, my existential humor is my only redeeming quality."

"You and I have two very different understandings of 'humor'."

"Let's just put a pin in that."

Audrey makes a big deal out of rolling her eyes. "We'll keep working on the black humor as a coping mechanism. I told you it isn't healthy. What else is going on with you? How's your brother?"

"Better at functioning than I am," I say. "I think he's making dinner tonight before work."

"You two don't stop keeping an eye on each other. Remember what I said about family."

"I know, I know, they're important," I say. "I'm not disagreeing with that."

"Good. And I still think I should be seeing him, too."

"I'm trying! He works too much. Says he never has the time."

"Well, as soon as we can get him to agree, we can work something out. What about the rest of your friends?"

"They're okay. Half of them are in school and the other half of them are trying to blueprint a duel runner engine for the World Racing Grand Prix."

"Ah," she says, her voice jumping up a little. "I remember you mentioning something about that. Something about you building a prototype?"

"Sort of," I remind her. "I repurposed a simulator of mine and built a physical component for it for Yusei's birthday last month, but they keep breaking it."

"Yusei's the, ah…"

"Dark hair, kinda broody. I cry on him sometimes."

"Right."

"I feel like you should definitely maybe know my friends' names by now. Like, they're all I ever talk about."

"You have a tendency to be vague and just say 'my friends'. And there are eight of them, unless I miscounted."

"Fine, I guess that's fair."

Depending on the day, these sessions and our conversations can go on for hours. It's been a pretty mellow week, though — no terribly bad brain days as of late — so today I'm only in the therapist's office for maybe a half hour.

It feels way too quick and uneventful, given that I was almost late. Today's one of those weird Thursdays where I have kickboxing and therapy in the same morning, so I always end up rushing from one place to another and zoning in and out of everything else I'm doing.

I try to slow my thoughts down as I leave Audrey's office — it's in a little office complex uptown, in the same vicinity as Aki's house — and zip my hoodie up to brace myself against the brisk morning. Hiraeth is the only duel runner, sitting sleek and shiny, in a sea of little cars cluttering up the parking lot. The neighborhood is still so quiet that my engine starting up echoes down the street as I start off toward downtown.

On an okay-scale of one to ten, I think I'm a five or a six. I'm doing fine. _Today_. Some days, six months ago feels like it was decades in the past. Others, it feels like I'm only hours out.

Without traffic, it's a five-ish minute drive from Audrey's office to home. Usually I have sessions in the morning, unless I have work, and then I have them right before dinner. Those are the times I tend to get caught in rush hour and my commute home jumps up to ten or fifteen minutes of a drive. But everybody's at work or school right now.

Evan is, too, I discover. I come home to an empty apartment, and I only remember that my brother took a morning shift after I catch a glimpse of the work schedule taped to the fridge. I probably won't see him until later.

An empty house makes me fidgety, so I open the windows and turn on the stereo just loud enough that I can hear it across the room from the couch. It's something to fill the silence — Tchaikovsky's Pas de Deux IV from Swan Lake — while I crawl onto my stomach on the couch and crack open a book.

When I'm home alone, I need to be doing something. Otherwise panic starts to flare up in me, and that's never good. When I'm alone without busy hands, my imagination has the opportunity to run wild, and sometimes things move in the few shadows still left over after I peel back all of the curtains to let light in.

The music has changed tracks a couple times by the time my phone buzzing on the desk across the room startles me back into reality. I forgot that I left it here while I was out; I dogear my page, set my book down, and go to see who's trying to contact me.

 **Evan Levine:** _hey when u get hungry leftovers frm last night r in the fridge, top shelf, love u_

 **Aki Izayoi:** _I just saw a dog at the bus stop & its owner let me pet it, good day so far_

 **Yusei Fudo:** _silvan are you home_

The most recent text is from Yusei, which I'm guessing is the one I just heard. I'm thinking that Evan texted me on his way out to work and Aki texted me on her way to school.

 **Silvan Levine:** _yea whats up_

I click 'Send' to Yusei, and text Evan a ' _thx love u too 3_ ' and Aki an ' _a+, lovin that positive thursday attitude_ '.

While my phone is still in my hands, Yusei responds.

 **Yusei Fudo:** _please come save me_

 **Silvan Levine:** _did u break my simulator again_

 **Yusei Fudo:** _yes_

 **Silvan Levine:** _why r u like this_

 **Yusei Fudo:** _hey im trying my best_

 **Yusei Fudo:** _i need another pair of hands because jack and crow are busy blaming each other for who broke it_

 **Silvan Levine:** _big sigh, im omw_

I shove my phone into the pocket of my hoodie and click off the stereo before I leave the apartment. I know I'm only going across the square to the guys' place, but I get anxious about people coming inside, so I lock the front door anyways.

When I get to the guys' doorstep, I find that their apartment is blistering hot (despite all the open windows) and stinks heavily of smoke and gasoline.

"Somebody set off an explosive in here," I retort as I poke my head in through the open door.

Jack and Crow, their faces covered in black stripes like skid marks, point at each other and shout "HIS FAULT!" at the same time.

"Look, at this point, does it matter?" I say, peeling my hoodie off. "Someone turn on the A/C. Or a fan. Or something. It's damn hot in here."

"Hey, whoa!" Crow groans. His orange hair is mostly tied back, save for some tufts of it that have been pulled free and are falling in his face. He's wearing his yellow 'Blackbird Deliveries' jacket, so he must've come from work. "Put a shirt on!"

"It's a sports bra, idiot, I came straight from kickboxing. Put a _brain_ on."

"First bra he's ever seen," Jack retorts. He's six feet and four inches of muscle and ego, but for once he's not all scowls.

"Hypocrite," Crow snipes.

"Just direct me to the household mechanic, please," I say.

" _Over here_ ," Yusei groans from beside the wreck of the prototype across the room.

"How bad is it this time?" I ask, trailing down the ramp near the door.

"A lot of it collapsed inward," he answers, peeling his safety goggles off.

"...You look like a reverse raccoon," I giggle as I cross to meet him; everywhere but around his eyes is smudged with grease and dirt.

"It's… been a day," he breathes, wiping his cheek with the back of his hand. "And it's not even noon yet."

"Well, how about we sort everything that survived out and then we can break for lunch before we start putting everything back together?"

"Sounds like a plan to me."

I plop down beside him, and together we start to sift through and separate the salvageable parts of the simulator. I can't remember how many times we've rebuilt it.

The first model of it, I built as a gift for Yusei's birthday last month. He had just started talking about blueprinting a new engine for the World Racing Grand Prix in a month, and I was already trying to upgrade my simulator, so I recruited Evan and we built a physical component for Yusei to test engine plans on.

So far, though, we've spent more time rebuilding it than testing on it.

"How was kickboxing?" He asks.

"Good, I can almost touch my knee to my nose."

"Did you have therapy after that?"

"Yep."

"How was that? How's Dr. Yukimura?"

"Good. It was good, she's doing good. I've had a pretty okay week, so I wasn't there too long. We just talked about what I did since the last visit."

"Hey, that's great. I'm glad you're having an easy week."

"How are you guys?" I say as I start to pile up the intact pieces of the simulator behind me. "I haven't seen you since Tuesday, what's new?"

"I get paid today!" Crow chirps. "Which means we can get more groceries!"

"Nice," I say. "Jack, you gotta stop with the expensive coffee, make sure your roommates can eat something _besides_ instant ramen."

"Hey, there's nothing wrong with instant ramen," Jack quips.

"There is when it's the only thing you eat for four days straight," Yusei mutters.

"You know what, Yusei, Crow, I literally live right across the square," I retort, "and Evan stress-cooks, so you guys can come eat our food. We have way too much of it, and it usually goes bad before either of us can finish the leftovers. Jack can stay here with his ramen."

"Uh, _hey_?"

"Sorry, Jack, we can't hear you over the sound of _real_ food," Crow says. "Ah, Evan, saving us from starvation one manic episode at a time."

From the other end of the room, I hear a knock. Yusei and I look up toward the open door at the same time, and Crow's the first to call, "Ushio! Did somebody complain about the noise? Because our landlady already chewed us out for that."

"Can we make a house call without having to write you a citation for once?" Ushio remarks.

" _For once_ ," I mutter. I wobble up onto my feet, brushing my greasy hands on my leggings. Ushio comes down onto the ground level, followed by Mikage. "So, if nobody's getting arrested, that must mean someone's getting a medal?"

"Why is it always worst-case best-case with you?" Ushio scoffs.

"That's wrong, pal, my worst case is instant death and my best case is somebody in this room becoming the president."

"Silvan?" Mikage asks. "You look… different!"

"I hope that's a good thing," I say.

"It's a wonderful thing! You look so much… well, healthier, I suppose. And how long ago did you cut your hair?"

I finger the ends of my hair, sheared off just below my jawline. "Pretty recently. A week or two ago, maybe. It was getting too long and scraggly, and it's easier to care for this way."

"It certainly suits you."

"Thanks."

"What brings you two our way?" Yusei asks, nudging his pile of intact pieces a little further away from the wrecked simulator. "Since we didn't do anything bad, apparently?"

" _Apparently_. Are you asking to be arrested?"

"No thanks."

Ushio breathes a long sigh and pins his eyes on the wreck in the middle of the room. "You guys are still doing this?"

"Of course," Yusei says. "If we can get it to work right, we'll have a real shot at winning the WRGP next month."

"'A real shot'! Be more positive," Crow calls from the WRGP poster he's pasted onto the stairwell. "The WRGP is supposed to the toughest duel circuit to ever come to Neo Domino, and we're _going_ to win it!"

"Creating one new engine design for the three of us to share is the perfect strategy to make sure we're all at our peaks when the time comes," Jack adds. "Being the fastest in a circuit like this is the best way to ensure victory."

"What about you?" Ushio nods toward me. "What's your payout?"

"I get to hang out with my friends and stand by with the first aid kit?" I shrug. "I dunno. I wanted to help."

"Just hanging around for the prep, hm?"

"Nah, she volunteered to be our entire pit crew," Crow remarks.

"What is it with you and biting off more than you can chew?" Ushio retorts.

"Like I said, I wanna hang out with my friends. And it isn't just me anymore, my brother'll be there, too."

"Gotcha. Anyways, what more do you guys have to prove by entering this thing? You already saved the world, I'd think you'd want a little time to kick back."

"Nah, any real duelist knows that they have to keep polishing their skills," Crow tells him.

"Crow's right." Yusei claps his hands together as if brushing dirt from them. "Personally? The reason I'm in this isn't really to win. Winning would be nice, and all, but it's not my priority. We may have saved a lot of people, but it was _really_ close. We almost lost everything—I know Crow and Jack came out of it more sure of their skills than ever, but I don't think I've ever been more uncertain of mine."

I steal a glance at him. That's what it's been about these days: training. Nothing else has been on his mind but that and the engine. Every time I've been around and Jack and Crow start with their victory fantasies, Yusei has a tendency to leave the room.

He's scared. And it's been tough for him, too. He was the one who had the world on his shoulders, in the end, and the past six months have been almost as tough for him as they've been for me. On the worst of nights, we sit on the roof of the loft together, sides pressed together, looking at the stars and talking our way through everything we almost lost all that time ago. I put my hand on his waist like his scar will burst open again if I don't hold it shut. He says my name at the beginning of every sentence so I can make sure it's still mine.

We both have good days and bad days, and we've been there for each other through both. And it's different for the two of us than it is for me and Aki, or me and my brother — just like it's different for him, mending back together with Jack and Crow.

This tournament is how he's trying to cope. He knows now that the mark he bears will bring a future he may not be prepared for. He and I have had too many conversations about what it means that he has it. What it means that he _still_ has it. Something else, someday, might be coming. Next time, though, he wants to be ready.

"Speaking of uncertainties," Mikage chimes, a welcome subject change, "the Bureau has had its fair share as of late."

"What, is _that_ why you're here?" Jack retorts.

Ushio crosses his arms. "...you all haven't heard about the Ghost, have you?"

"The _what now_?" Yusei asks.

"Ooh, yeah, I have!" Crow replies, sounding like he's about to launch headfirst into a horror story. "They're that dude that's supposed to pop up out of nowhere, challenge you to a duel, and then force you into a crash, right?"

"That's right," Mikage sighs. "Since turbo dueling was legalized and duelists are regularly challenging each other on the streets, there should be zero risk of injury. We specifically programmed a host of safety measures to ensure that no one gets hurt."

"So… your 'Ghost' is bypassing the safety measures?" I ask. I remember studying those programs and protocols right after the bridge was completed.

"That's right."

"Okay, then, what does this have to do with us?" Crow remarks. "I mean, obviously someone has to go out, find them, take them on in a turbo duel, and beat them."

"Right." Ushio turns to Yusei. "So, how about it?"

Yusei stares blandly back at him. "So how about _what_?"

Before Ushio can say anything else, Crow gets up, plants a hand on him and a hand on Mikage, and starts to shove them out the door. "Oh no you don't! I know where you're going with this, and you can forget it! Don't get me wrong, it sucks that people are getting hurt, but we have the Grand Prix to worry about and we can't spare any time! You guys are Security, so _you_ take care of it!" He kicks the door shut behind them, then bolts it, then slides down onto the floor with his back to the door jamb. "I don't remember going to Security school, you guys."

"It must be pretty serious, if they're looking for outside help," I say.

"Do you think it's a psychic?" Yusei asks, and when I whip my head around to look at him, he quickly adds, "or a really good hacker?"

"I hope it's that second one," I say.

"I have a better idea," Jack chimes. "Ghosts aren't real. Ta-da, I just solved all of our problems."

"Do you want a prize?" Yusei retorts.

"Hey, I'll fight you."

"Stop it," I snap. "This could be a real, actual problem. What if it _is_ a psychic?"

"A psychic turbo duelist randomly running people off the road," Jack says. "You're right, definitely sounds plausible."

"There are more of them out there than were in Arcadia, Jack, and you know it," I tell him. "There's no telling what they could be capable of."

"Let's just," Yusei interjects, "stop talking about it. Crow, thank you for kicking them out, obviously we don't need to think about more things. Jack, easy on the sarcasm, nobody needs to get punched right now. Silvan, I'm sure we don't have to worry about any psychics. It's probably a crime thing, and that's Security's business anyways. Let's just… finish sorting all of _this_ out."

Crow and Jack mumble something like an 'okay'. I nod. We're all mostly silent until we break for lunch and trade the hot garage for my place and last night's leftovers.

•••

We have the simulator rebuilt by five-ish, and at that point Yusei says he's too exhausted to comb through the code and try to reprogram another test today. He says he'll look at it again tomorrow. So after letting him, Jack, and Crow know that they're welcome to come over for dinner, I go back home with plans to change clothes (at long last) and find my brother in the kitchen washing his goggles in the sink.

"What are you doing?" I say.

"I was microwaving spaghetti and it exploded at me," he says, shaking the water off of the lenses. "Were you with the guys?"

"Yeah, we just finished fixing the simulator again."

" _Again_?" he exhales. "What model are they on?"

"Twenty or thirty somethin'. I don't know, I lost count."

"Ahh, I'll have to go over more, I keep getting my shifts scheduled in the morning." He reaches for me, wrangles an arm around my shoulders, and leans to kiss the top of my head. "How was your day? Therapy and kickboxing all good?"

"Yep. I functioned today and everything."

"Good, I'm proud."

"How was work?"

"Busy. A lot of totaled duel runners came in this morning."

I can feel my heartbeat all the way up at the crown of my head. "How many?"

"Six or seven, just this morning. We had to send out for parts for some of them, they're crunched up so bad."

I lean against the lip of the sink. "...Ushio and Mikage stopped by today to tell us about somebody who's supposed to be bypassing the safety measures on the causeway. Crashing people. Somebody called 'Ghost'."

Evan shakes his head solemnly. "Wild. That would explain that, though."

"They were trying to ask the guys to go after it."

"Hoo boy, it's a sad day when Security asks citizens to catch their criminals for them."

"Crow kicked them out. He said we were too busy to help."

"Good. That's not anyone's problem but Security's. I'd rather we not find any of the guys' runners on our to-fix queue."

I swallow. "You really think they'd be at risk for that?"

"I'd rather not find out."

"Me neither," I admit. "I, uh, invited them over for dinner, if that's cool."

"They couldn't get groceries this week, could they?"

I laugh.

"I told Yusei keeping a joint bank account was a bad idea," Evan groans.

"You're right, but I think it's easier for them to pay rent that way."

"Easier than what?"

"Easier than chasing Jack around for his contribution, probably."

Evan breathes a long sigh. "Ah, whatever. We've got plenty of food, anyways."

"That's what I figured." I nudge him with my elbow. "I'm gonna go change, I forgot to when I got home so now I've been in sweaty workout clothes all day."

"Right, you've got closing shift too, right? What time are you in?"

"Six, I think. I'll probably eat something before I go."

I scale the set of stairs and the ladder that goes up into the loft; outside of the ladder hatch, it's a plain, boxy little transition room. My room is to the left and Evan's is to the right.

My room is pretty small, with a window facing out that I can unlatch and climb out of onto the roof. The walls are covered in pages of scale drawings and doodles, and I have as many bookcases as will fit.

My dresser's only a squat little chest of two or three drawers beneath my bed, and I go rummaging through it until I find a tee shirt and some torn jeans to change into. Taking care of my hair isn't as much of a chore since I cut it, so I can rake my fingers through it a couple times to untangle it before I start back downstairs.

When I get there, I find my brother talking to Yusei, who looks like he's about to go somewhere—he's wearing his jacket and gloves and everything.

"What's up?" I ask. "Everything okay?"

"Mikage just called," Yusei begins.

"Uh oh."

"Turns out there is a Ghost after all," he continues. "And apparently it put Ushio in the hospital."

"Wha — it's only been a few hours!"

"Apparently he took Crow's advice and went out right away looking for it. It got him on the causeway by the market district."

"In broad daylight?"

"That highway is always empty between one and four." He sighs. "As soon as rush hour's over, Crow, Jack, and I are going to go looking for it."

I must look worried, because not a second later, his voice lowers and he says, "We'll be okay. I promise."

"How badly did it get Ushio?" I ask.

"It, uh…" He doesn't look at me. "He's going to be on leave for a while."

"None of you need to get hurt right now. Or _ever_."

"If Security can't deal with it, who says we can't, too? Security couldn't deal with the Dark Signers, either."

"Whoa there," Evan chimes. "Slow down. _You_ could barely deal with the Dark Signers."

"And don't go using that for comparison," I add. "No downplaying."

"Look, if... " he stops to take a breath. "You both know I'm looking for whatever these marks want next of us. What if this is it?"

"What if it's like you said? What if you're overthinking it? Maybe it's not a psychic or some ethereal threat, maybe it's just a really smart criminal!"

"I don't want to take that chance."

"If you're going to go out there, guns blazing, no matter what we say," Evan cuts in, "then you need to be ten times more careful than usual."

"I want to go with you," I puff.

"You have work, Silvan," Yusei says patiently.

"I can get someone to cover my shift!"

"Be responsible and go to work," he urges. "Please just let me do this. If it's not bad, it's not bad, but I don't want to risk it being worse."

"As long as you've got an excuse to keep Silvan out of this, why don't I tag along?" Evan asks.

"You don't duel, Ev —"

"I don't care. I can ride and I can Waste."

"You guys, I appreciate that you're worried enough to want to tag along, but Jack, Crow, and I will be okay by ourselves. Besides, I don't even know if the three of us together will attract the thing. It takes out lone duelists, remember?"

"You are _not_ allowed to go alone," I remark.

"I know, I know, that part was obvious."

"If you need anything, any help at all, I don't care what it is, _you call me_. Okay? I'll come running."

"I'll set you to number one on my speed dial."

"I'm sorry, am I not _already_ number one?"

He gives a sheepish almost-smile. "I'm not sure what this is, but we're going to deal with it."

" _Please_ be careful," I remind him. "I will leave work if I have to."

"At least have _some_ faith in me," he says.

"You know I've got faith in you to the grave."

"To the grave," he parrots, half in a sigh. He taps a playful, barely-there punch to my arm. "I'll keep you posted."

"Good," I snipe. "And tell Jack and Crow to watch your back, too."

"I will. Try not to worry too much."

"That's literally impossible," I tell him.

I watch him out the front window of the apartment as he leaves with Jack and Crow, off to solve some new mystery.

"I haven't talked to him for real for a couple weeks," Evan says absentmindedly. He stands next to me at the window, arm pressed to my shoulder. "When's the last time you did?"

"Tuesday."

"Is he not doing well?"

This is the first time Yusei has gone off like this since six months ago — off to somewhere unknown, to chase some danger, just him, Jack, and Crow. He hasn't expressed a want or a need to do it until now. I'm trying not to be afraid that he'll come back in a state of mind that's different than the one he was in when he left.

"He has hard days like me," I admit.

I send off a silent prayer to the universe, to whatever is listening, that he'll stay safe despite whatever he finds tonight.

When I can no longer hear the familiar thrumming sound of duel runner engines, I go looking for my keys so I can get ready to get to work.


	33. Shot In The Dark

I used to dread days and their incomings, because I never knew what would happen to me in the morning. Sometimes it's still like that. Today kinda feels like that.

I barely sleep the night Yusei, Jack, and Crow are out tracking down the Ghost — as a matter of fact, I sit up on the roof with a blanket until the sun is peeking over the buildings in the distance and three duel runners rumble into the square.

They're all there, duel runners intact, and when they dismount, nobody looks like they're having trouble walking. Which is good. That means no one got hurt.

Or they didn't find what they were looking for.

I fumble with my phone underneath my blanket and text Yusei, ' _on the roof_ ', hoping he sees it and considers coming to tell me what happened.

I watch them pull their runners around the corner, to the back garage door, and it's a couple minutes before I get a text back.

 **Yusei Fudo** : _someday youll sleep_

 **Silvan Levine** : _ur funny_

 **Yusei Fudo** : _can I tell you about what happened later? I need a nap and some ibuprofen_

 **Silvan Levine** : _not goin anywhere pal, take ur time_

Typing that makes me fume — I need to know what it was he found. If it turned out to be no big deal. I assume, at least, by his response, that they found whatever 'Ghost' was haunting the highways, and dealt with it.

If it's done with and my friends are unhurt, then I suppose I have more of a motivation to wait to be told about what happened.

At least, that's what I tell myself before I spend the next three days in total radio silence.

I work almost all day Friday, with a tiny reprieve for kickboxing at 5. Around then, I send Yusei a text that says ' _everythin? ok?_ '. Evan and I both have a shift at the garage Saturday morning, and later in the afternoon I spend a couple of hours stacking books at the library.

Sunday, though, nobody works, so I pace around all day waiting for something to happen. I type up a text that consists of six or seven question marks, but I delete it because I feel like I'll be a bother. Maybe there's a reason he's keeping to himself. But what if there isn't? What if he needs to talk to somebody? _But what if he doesn't_?

Anyways, I'm spending the weekend staying anxious and mostly quiet and wondering what could be going on in the flat across the square.

On Monday afternoon, after I'm unwinding post my morning shift, Crow rattles the doorknob until I, ready to smack him in the face, come to answer the front door. He's all dressed for work, which makes me think that he's about to go out on a delivery, and he says, "Can you _please_ go talk to Yusei for me? He's been pacing around all weekend and won't tell me or Jack what's bothering him."

"I've been waiting all weekend for _him_ to come talk to _me_ ," I say. "I'm being patient for once!"

"Bad timing, Sil."

I fidget with the hem of my shirt. Something is definitely wrong if he's neglecting Crow and Jack, too. "What if he doesn't want to talk?"

"Even if he doesn't, he'll talk to you. He always does." Crow checks the time on his phone. "I gotta go. _Please_ go make him spill."

"Okay. I'll… I'll see if I can."

I hear his duel runner rumble away as I meander down to the desk to grab my phone and shoot a ' _hey r u home_ ' text to Yusei. What did he see? What happened to them? And why didn't it seem to be bothering Crow?

Never mind that almost nothing bothers Crow. But Yusei not wanting to talk, even to me, is concerning. Usually he tells me everything that bothers him, unless Evan's the only one in the house when Yusei comes around, in which case I also hear things through my brother. And I know for sure that he'll tell Jack and Crow if he knows they're willing to listen. So, this is just… very worrying.

I wait a full ten minutes for a text back and get nothing, so I get up to go across the square and try to see if he's just ignoring me, or something.

Normally I'm very bad at being patient. Unless I have something to motivate me, that is. Trying to give Yusei a little bit of space felt like a good enough excuse to me, but Crow's request just made me antsier.

Their front door is locked, so I knock a couple times and wait a minute or two before Wasting the lock open.

Well, no one's home, because there are no duel runners down below. Should I be miffed at Crow for asking me to talk to Yusei when he isn't even around? Plus, now I feel bad for opening the door.

Not home, won't answer his phone… fucker. I trudge back across the square to the loft in solemn silence, now more concerned than ever about what 'Ghost' the guys came across. What Yusei, particularly, saw that unnerved him and didn't unnerve Crow or Jack.

I make a beeline for the coffee pot, because it's something to keep my hands busy with, and immediately my eyes catch on a note stuck to the fridge in Evan's handwriting: **DON'T FORGET: PICK UP AKI 1 PM.**

"Shit," I mutter to the empty garage.

The notes he leaves are always for me — I'd never remember to do anything unless Evan reminded me first. I have to forego making coffee, because I'm supposed to pick up Aki from school. We're studying for her physics midterm today.

I stuff my house key into my back pocket and jog toward the back of the garage, where I can slide the sheet metal door open and pull Hiraeth out onto the street. From there, after I lock up the garage door, I'm off uptown toward Duel Academia.

I don't even know how well I'll be able to focus on physics if I can't get a conversation with Yusei in. Gods, I'm going to be fixated on this all day.

Strangely enough, when I pull up outside of Duel Academia, the lot's empty. Well, not empty. There are cars everywhere, parents waiting to pick up their children, I assume, but nobody I can see in a uniform.

I find somewhere to park, curling my keys into the palm of my hand so I have something tactile to fiddle with, and sift my way through the cars and the people until I can see the front office.

"S'cuse me," I say to an impatient-looking woman in a suit. "Where is everybody?"

She looks me up and down, noticeably lingering on the one of my tattoos that's visible on my arm. "I wouldn't know. I've been texting my second-year for almost ten minutes. The lower secondaries haven't been let out."

That's… weird. I nod a nonverbal 'thanks' in the lady's general direction and head up toward the office, my phone already in my hand. I text Aki ' _guy where tf are you_ ' and peek in the window of the front office, where there's a long line of parents waiting to speak with the singular man behind the desk.

My phone vibrates:

 **Aki Izayoi** : _back gate of stadium_

 **Aki Izayoi:** _im so pissed rn_

 **Silvan Levine:** _?_

I start at a jog around the front of the school, toward the side gate that leads into the duel stadium. They usually only use it for the school tournaments or finals, and those are always scheduled. There's nothing that I know of happening there today.

I find Aki right outside a back door, arms crossed, leaning against the wall, leg bouncing. It's still so strange to see her in her school uniform, looking all uptight and proper in her crisp collared shirt and pleated skirt. Though, right now, she definitely _looks_ pissed.

"Hey, what's happening?" I ask. "And can you let me in maybe?"

She unlatches the gate for me and says, "Honestly? I don't even know anymore."

"Let's try that again. Why are you pissed?"

She breathes a long sigh, fingers pressed to her temples. "You know our Vice Principal."

"Heitmann? What did that halfwit do now?"

"So on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, I T.A. for the duel lectures for the lower secondaries."

"Yep. You've mentioned that."

"Heitmann came in to do teacher evaluations, or—or something, I don't know. But he ended up watching a few of the kids duel and then spent half an hour telling a bunch of lower second-years that they suck at dueling."

"Oh geez."

"When I tried stepping in to defend them, he threatened to suspend me—"

"What the _fuck_."

"—and then he just downright said he was going to expel the whole class."

"Wait… _what_?" I splutter. "Can he do that? Do all the people waiting out front for their kids know?"

"Well, there's a little more. It's why we're all in the stadium right now. Come on." She grabs my hand and leads me inside, through the main lobby, and up a set of stairs into the western end of the stands.

Dozens of pairs of eyes flicker toward us when we come down into the aisle, toward Rua and Ruka, who are sitting a little ways in to one of the lower rows. They're surrounded by a number of kids their age that I'm guessing must encompass a couple of classes.

"Hey! Hey, guys, move down a seat!" Rua urges the kids sitting next to him.

"Silvan, what are you doing here?" Ruka asks.

Aki and I slide in, around a few of the lower secondary students, and take a seat to Rua's right. "I was supposed to pick up Aki today so we could study for her physics exam. What's going on?"

Ruka points—down below, to the field, where two figures have taken dueling positions.

"Is that… _Yusei_?" I sputter. "Why is he here?" I'd know that tousle of wild hair anywhere. But what the hell is he doing here? Not at his apartment, where I can corner him into talking to me?

"We're not exactly uh, super clear on that," Rua says.

"He challenged Heitmann for the expulsion threat," Aki adds. "If he wins, it gets overturned."

"Oh," I say, propping my feet up against the back of the chair in front of me. "Then you're in good hands."

High heels come clicking down the stairs behind us, and I turn in time to see a pretty woman in an orange blazer pass us on her way down to the bottom of the seating area. When she gets there, she calls, "Okay, everybody, I've alerted the front office and your parents!"

"Did you tell them this won't take long?" Aki remarks. "Because it won't."

The woman looks… unconvinced. "I'm glad you're so confident in your friend, Aki."

Aki smooths the pleats in her skirt down. "I don't think I've been wrong about these things before."

"And you brought _another_ friend," the woman says, pacing back up a couple of stairs towards us.

"My friend Silvan," Aki says while reaching to close her hand around mine. "She came to pick me up."

"Hi," I chime.

"Hi," the woman responds.

"I'm Silvan, I'm a mechanic."

"Maria—I teach lower first and second-years."

"Nice to meet you."

"Guys! Guys look!" Rua reaches over and starts smacking my shoulder. "The scoreboard activated, I think we're finally starting!"

That must have been what the wait was for; maybe a technician had to be called to turn everything on.

Around us, it feels and sounds like the kids are getting agitated. Chairs creak as people lean forward in them, and I pin my eyes on the scoreboard as voices start to bounce up to us from the duel field.

"Since you're the challenger and unfortunately up against the deck that's been passed down to me, why don't you take the first turn?" Heitmann calls.

"My pleasure." Yusei draws his hand. "I summon Flamvell Guard in Defense Position!" It's a LV 1, with a pretty sizeable 2000 Defense Points.

"That's _my_ Flamvell Guard!" One of the kids from the class exclaims.

I incline my head toward Aki, looking for an explanation as to why Yusei isn't using his own cards, but she just shrugs.

"What do you hope to accomplish with one tiny monster like that?" Heitmann retorts.

"You'll see!" Yusei places two cards face down and ends his turn.

"Your Tuner was nice, Yusei, but it won't be on the field for long! I summon my Ancient Gear Statue in Attack Position!"

I straighten up in my seat. " _Ancient Gears_?"

Maria looks over at me from where she stands on the stairs. "You know about them?"

"Of course!"

"I'm surprised! Those cards are terribly obscure. We don't even use them in our curriculum anymore."

Aki slips her hand through the crook of my arm. "Silvan's too smart for school."

Heat flutters up into my face. "Uh. No, I just… I read a lot."

"Next, I'll activate Machine Duplication!" Heitmann says. "This allows me to Special Summon two more Ancient Gear Statues from my deck!"

"He's just summoning a bunch of weak monsters," Rua pipes up.

"Ancient Gear Statue has a special effect," I tell him. "If you have a higher level Machine-type monster in your hand, you can tribute Ancient Gear Statue to summon that higher level monster."

"So, theoretically he could summon three high level monsters with those three on his field?" Ruka asks.

"If he has 'em in his hand, sure," I say.

"Any real duelist knows that weaker monsters are always only the stepping stones to bigger monsters!" Heitmann continues. "I activate the special effect of my Ancient Gear Statues! By tributing all three Statues on my field, I can summon three Ancient Gear Golem!"

"Oh," I say. "Well, see? Like that."

"I activate Tuner's Barrier!" Yusei replies, flipping a facedown. "This card will prevent Flamvell Guard from being destroyed this turn!"

"You can protect your puny little monster all you want, but my Golem can still attack and inflict Piercing Damage!"

That's 3000 points of damage. I find myself flinching when the Golem smack their large metallic hands on the barrier between them and Flamvell Guard. The only time I've seen Yusei duel since six months ago has been on the coffee table, tossing cards out with Jack or Crow in between working on the prototype. It's hard for me to forget that not everyone deals real damage.

"Next, I activate Level Thunder!" Heitmann cackles. "This will allow me to inflict damage on you equal to the combined levels of all of my monsters times 100!"

"Three LV 8 monsters," I say. "That's… 2400 more points."

There are a couple shouts of "he's going to lose" and "we're done for".

"Hey! Hush up!" Aki snaps, head on a swivel as she looks for the sources of the little voices. "You really think the Fortune Cup champion would lose to some narcissist teacher so easily?"

I squeeze her hand to try to bring her back down to earth. She keeps fidgeting even after she turns back to the duel.

"Doin' okay?" I ask.

"Fine," she says tersely, lip a little curled, as she squeezes my hand back.

Yusei discards the card 'Hanewata' to negate all damage he would've taken, which forces Heitmann to end his turn. Hanewata must be another card from Maria's class, because I've never seen it in his deck and a girl behind us makes an excited noise when he plays it.

I think I get it, though—Tuner's Barrier is one of his cards, but the others weren't. Aki mentioned that Heitmann had called the kids bad duelists… So Yusei must have added a bunch of class cards to make beating Heitmann more pleasantly ironic.

Now it's Yusei's turn, and I can almost feel everyone around us leaning forward into their own suspense. "I activate Cards of Consonance—by discarding a card in my hand, I can draw two cards! Next, I summon Eccentric Boy in Attack Position!"

Also not one of Yusei's cards. A murmur runs through a few of the kids, like they don't know who it belongs to either.

"Next, I activate the effect of Eccentric Boy, which allows me to tune it together with a card in my hand! I'll tune Eccentric Boy with Turret Warrior to summon Stardust Dragon to the field!"

There's the typical reaction — a lot of 'oohs' and 'ahhs' from the kids around us.

"It doesn't matter!" Heitmann calls. "No matter what you do, that lizard is still no match for my Ancient Gear Golem!"

"Maybe not by itself! I activate Variety Comes Out! This card will return Stardust to my Extra Deck and allow me to summon Tuner monsters in my Grave that equal the attack of the monster I just gave up! I'm summoning back Eccentric Boy, Debris Dragon, and Hanewata!"

"Summoning back a bunch of Tuners won't do anything! You've marked yourself for destruction!"

"That's only what you _think_ ," Yusei points out. "You think that weak monsters can't do anything, but you haven't even tried putting them to use. See, these cards are the ones that you called worthless—they're the cards that are going to put you in your place! I activate Tuner's Explosion, which will allow me to use Tuner monsters on my field to destroy the monsters on your field and deal you 1000 points of damage for each one!"

One by one, Flamvell Guard, Hanewata, and Eccentric Boy sail into Heitmann's Golem and send them crashing to the ground. With a last attack from Debris Dragon, Heitmann's LP ticks all the way down to 0 and the kids in the stands jump up and start to cheer.

I sit squashed between Aki, Ruka, and Rua, who have curled inward toward me to avoid the onslaught of students rushing down out of the stands to go mob Yusei.

"That was fun," Aki chirps once we're the only ones left who haven't swarmed down to the dueling field. "If Yusei hadn't shown up, I probably would have fought Heitmann myself."

"What is Yusei doing here, anyways?" I ask. "Can we _try_ to clarify maybe?"

"We still don't really know," Ruka says. "He was just sort of _there_ all of a sudden."

"He came into the classroom saying someone had called on him to repair something," Aki tells me. "And he just ended up telling Heitmann to square up."

"Interesting." I shrug. "Weirdly convenient, I guess, but you guys won't be expelled, so I guess we all win. Am I still taking you back to my place, Aki?"

"Yep." She scoops her book bag out from under her chair. "I have my books and I'm ready to suffer."

"That's the spirit," I say, pulling myself to my feet. "Rua, Ruka, you two need a ride?"

"Actually, that'd be pretty cool," Ruka answers.

"Hope you guys don't mind a little proximity."

I figure, if this is where Yusei's been, he'll probably come straight back when he's done. It doesn't make sense to me to wade through a bunch of kids to try to chew him out for isolating himself these past few days. I'll have to corner him when he gets back.

So I squeeze the twins onto Hiraeth behind Aki and drop them at their apartment before I take Aki back to my place. Evan must be back and up in his room—his duel runner's still settling near the garage door.

Aki unpacks all her books and pens and things on the coffee table, and while I try to rush-make myself something for lunch, I end up rambling to her about the whole Yusei thing.

"So I don't know why he was at Duel Academia, but I was looking for him. I don't think he's avoiding me but I feel like he might be avoiding me. Am I overthinking it?"

"I mean, if Crow says something's up, something probably is," she tells me. "He didn't mention anything that happened with the Ghost?"

"No! I still don't know anything about that. I assume it's fixed, we haven't heard any more about it, but I'm still over here in the dark!"

"Well, I definitely don't think Yusei is deliberately avoiding you. He's just a hard guy to get a moment with sometimes."

"I guess. Hey, do you want anything?"

"I'm okay for now."

"Okay, just checking. I'm already making food, so I figured I'd make sure."

Not a couple moments later, there's a knock on the door. I turn to answer it, but Aki's already halfway there, so I turn back to my half-made sandwich.

A few seconds later, after I hear the deadbolt unlock, I almost drop my butter knife at Aki's surprised little squeak of, " _M-Misty_?"

"Not so loud. May I come in?"

I tense a little at the sound of Misty's voice. The first and last time we met, I was behind bars and she was undead. I know Aki sends her letters all the time, but I also could have sworn that she's been out of Neo Domino for a while. And that she was supposed to be gone for much longer.

I make sure to keep the kitchen island between us when I turn to look at her. This is also the first time we've actually met up close.

"How… how did you know where I live?" I ask.

"I went to Aki's first, and her mother sent me here," she says as she approaches. She's a tall, lean woman in a sundress, huge dark sunglasses, and a white headscarf patterned with flowers. She slips her glasses off of the end of her nose and pins her eyes on me, sizing me up. "Wonderful to _officially_ meet you, Silvan. Aki writes of you often."

Heat rushes into my cheeks.

"I-I… thought you were in Paris," Aki stammers.

Misty unravels her headscarf from around her shoulders and sets it on the island with her sunglasses. Her dark, sleek hair is pulled back, probably to keep it together under the scarf. "I was."

"So… what are you doing back so soon?" Aki nods toward the scarf and the glasses, which I have to assume must be some form of disguise. "Does _anyone_ know you're back in the city?"

"The press doesn't, and I'd like to keep it that way as long as I can. I was planning on my holiday being much longer than six months, but…" she breathes a sigh. "Long story."

"We have time," Aki replies.

"I'd rather just be up front about it." She says something that makes everything in me pause: "Do either of you keep track of Divine?"

I see Aki's throat bob. "No. Of course not."

"Well, I do." Misty scowls when she says it. "I have been. I thought it might be a good idea to talk to you about him."

I hear myself say, "No offense, Misty, but you need to leave."

She pins hard, cold eyes on me. "This is serious."

"Please leave my house." My voice sounds strangled.

"I need you to put your empathy on hold for a second. I'm not here because I want to make casual conversation about that monster. I'm here because I've learned he's eligible for parole."

Aki, immediately, screeches, " _WHAT_?!"

It takes me a couple seconds longer to process that — that word. _Parole._ What it means. What it implies.

 _Free_. They're going to _free_ him. That murderer, my captor, my kidnapper… free, again.

What if he comes back for us? What if he comes back for _me_? Suddenly I'm in that elevator again, walls pressing to my shoulders, searching for something to hide behind. There's nowhere to go, not even the ghost of Yusei to separate me from going back, not my brother to stand in the way of the flames. Those cold rooms, watching weather out the window, tiny metal claws sinking underneath my skin —

"Shut UP! All of you! SHUT _UP_!"

Suddenly Aki comes around the island to me—her voice, that was her voice. I didn't know anyone was still speaking.

"Breathe," she exclaims. She's on her knees next to me, and then I'm in her arms, and she's drawing circles on my back with her fingers. "You have to breathe. Listen to my voice, okay? Just breathe."

I'm trying so hard to listen to her and breathe that I start to hiccup. I don't even remember hitting the floor. I don't remember ever seeing Evan, who's standing off to the side, hand stretched toward me, come down into the room, and I certainly don't remember letting Yusei — wide eyed, on the other side of the island — through the front door, either.

"Can you stand up with me?" Aki is saying. "Are you okay to get off the floor, or do you need help? Nod if you can hear me."

I bob my head ambiguously.

"Let's get you up, maybe get some water. Can you speak?"

"I-I…"

Somebody — Evan, I think — scoops me off of the floor, and then I'm on the couch, sitting up only because Evan and Aki are pressed in close enough to me to keep me from toppling over. I have to blink, at the very least, but if I close my eyes I'm definitely going to throw up.

"Just keep breathing," Aki's saying. "You're at home, remember? Downstairs with me and your brother and Yusei? You had work this morning, you picked me up from school, you were starting to make some lunch? We're going to study for physics. Just another Monday. All normal. Nothing new."

"Everything's okay." Evan's hand presses in against my shoulder. His voice is very gentle. "Want me to open a window?"

"Open all of them," Aki orders.

My brother gets up to open the windows, I think, and a pair of hands presses in around mine. I didn't realize I was shaking until now, when my eyes focus enough that I can see Yusei holding my hands still. His palms are rough with scars.

"You're still safe, Silvan," he says. "You're safe with us. Silvan, did you know that?"

I bob my head. His voice is soft around my name.

Aki brushes a thumb under my eye to catch tears. "Do you want anything? I can make you some coffee or some tea. You were in the middle of making a sandwich, I can finish doing that if you're still hungry. Tell me what you need."

"I…" I swallow hard and make an effort to compose myself. To keep breathing. To force words out. "I need to lie down."

Aki springs up off of the couch and pulls me toward the arm, trying to get me to recline. When I'm lying on my back, Yusei tosses his coat on top of me. The warmth and the familiar smell on it brings back a rush of memories I've been afraid of losing — that first taste of freedom, soaring down Satellite roads on the back of Hiraeth, and the boy out of a painting who protected me despite not knowing a thing about me.

My 'thank you' gets caught in my throat, but his expression tells me that he knows I'm grateful. He leans on the couch arm and Aki sinks onto the floor, stroking a gentle hand languidly through my hair. I can't put into words how grateful I am for her.

"If you have anything else to say," my brother says suddenly, sounding very far away, "I think you have about thirty seconds to explain yourself."

"I didn't mean for anything like this. I didn't know." _Misty_.

"I don't care if you didn't know. I care that you know _better_. Explain. Now."

"They're not really freeing him," I hear myself say; Aki's hand pauses in my hair. "Are they?"

"Not if I have anything to say about it." Misty's voice is a little closer now.

"Why the early release?" Yusei breathes.

"I don't know. If I were to guess, I'd say he has some friends in high places. Or some sick bastard bought his time. Either way, I don't plan on letting him go anywhere. I didn't come here to deliver that as bad news, anyways. I came to ask for your help."

"In case you haven't noticed," Aki retorts, " _we're_ the ones that need the help."

"I understand that. I want this to be closure for you, too."

"Get more specific before I show you the door," Evan says.

"I want him prosecuted," Misty explains. "For killing my brother, for all he did to you and others like you."

"Okay," Aki says flatly. "That's what prison's for. And he's getting out of there, apparently."

"Aki, to be totally frank, I want him much more than prosecuted. I want him dead."

 _Dead_ makes me flinch. Aki sets her hand on my shoulder. I can feel her fingers starting to twitch.

"I fully intend to compile a criminal charge against him for all that he's done and see that no more space is wasted on his disgusting excuse for a life."

"Do… we even _have_ a death penalty?" Yusei stutters.

"There's — a death row," I croak. "The mark." I reach toward him, pointing to the yellow scar on his cheek. "The reddish ones are for death row inmates."

"It's for the worst of criminals," Misty fills in. "And once I prove that he belongs among them, we'll all be truly rid of him."

"So that's why you came?" Aki asks bitterly. "To break the bad news to us? To try and make it seem less bad by saying you're just going to sue him?"

"I wanted to ask the two of you to give testimonials."

"You… you wanted _what_?"

"She wants you to stand up in front of a courtroom and lay out your trauma for them," Evan retorts. "I think the fuck not."

"I didn't expect anyone to say yes just yet. Especially when this is very new — "

"I really think," Evan says thinly, hands on his hips, "that you should _leave_."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you at all. I wanted you in the loop." Misty makes a beeline for the counter, where she left her scarf and her glasses. "Just… think about it. If you're willing. Please."

Evan doesn't say anything else. He follows Misty, who's still stuttering apologies, up the stairs to the door, and Yusei suddenly says, "Don't you dare slam that."

I hear my brother heave a sigh as the deadbolt clicks. I've heard him sigh enough lately that I could pick the sound of his breath alone out of a crowd.

"I didn't even know you were home," he says softly, his voice coming closer. "I just heard a lot of shouting."

"What—happened, exactly?" I ask.

Aki shakes her head. "It's… not important. I got mad at Misty, is all. Then she started to panic and it brought Evan downstairs."

I tilt my head toward Yusei; it makes my head spin a little. "Where did _you_ come from?"

"I was coming to ask you if you had time to code with me," he answers. "And the door was just open."

"The _nerve_ that lady has," Evan grumbles. "Yes, show up on our doorstep asking for legal help. By the way, the last time we saw each other, you were possessed by a demon! Did I mention you wanted us dead?"

"We get it, Ev, it's okay," Yusei tells him. "Are you feeling okay, Silvan? Aki? Anything we can do?"

Aki, her fingers still trembling on my shoulder, says, "I need to take a walk before I send somebody's duel runner through a wall."

"Okay. Do you want any of us to go with you?"

"Silvan?" She strokes my hair with that same trembling hand. "Do you want to go outside?"

I swallow something lurking in the back of my throat. "I… would if I could move my—my legs."

Evan exhales hard. "I'm calling Audrey," he says, sounding tired.


	34. First Breath

"Feeling anything?" Audrey asks.

"Lightheaded," I say.

"Do you want to stop?"

"I don't really want to get up," I admit.

Audrey hands me her pen to fiddle with; the two of us are lying side by side, upside down, on her fainting couch. Boy, the things this lady does for me if I ask.

"You haven't heard anything about him until now, have you?"

"No," I admit, clicking the pen open and shut with my thumb. "And Misty was supposed to be in Paris for at least three more months. I haven't thought about her in ages."

"How long is ages?"

"I… I don't know. Maybe since all of that stuff actually—actually _happened_. But it's not like I've ever really stopped thinking about the Dark Signer bullshit. It's just that the only ones of them I think about on the daily are Carly and Kiryu."

"Remind me how they're… ah, _alive_."

"We don't know," I admit. "They just are. But only Carly and Misty have turned up at this point, that we know of, so we can only assume the rest of them are alive somewhere too. But it's whatever. Misty's supposed to be somewhere that isn't here. She took a break from modeling straight out of the Dark Signer bullshit to process it all and get back to being alive, I guess."

"And… you said she was in this for her brother."

"Yeah! But, like… not that that's not a legit reason to be doing this. I mean, I'd go ham if somebody _looked_ at my brother wrong. I think she has every right to try to go after them legally. But I… I almost don't think I want to be involved?"

"Really?"

"I don't _know_ ," I groan. "Why—Why are they letting him out? Who the fuck's idea was that? Ushio and Mikage told me when he was first admitted to the Detention Center that there was no chance in hell he was ever going to get out."

"Do you have any idea why he's eligible for parole? Or are you at all interested in finding out why?"

"O-Of course I am!" I exclaim. "I don't want my ab—abuser running around without me knowing about it! But I, I just, I… I don't know how to feel. She's not the only person he hurt."

"Do you feel like you should be spearheading whatever effort there is to put him back behind bars?" Audrey asks.

"I… don't want anything to do with him for the rest of my life," I say bleakly. "But something—something in me knows he could come back for me if he goes free. And, and I can't just… just _ignore_ that! I know I have to, to do _something_ to help."

Audrey passes me her legal pad. "Doodle something for me."

"Oh. Okay."

She doesn't speak again until after I've stopped clicking the pen and started drawing. "You're obligated to do only what you feel you should. And this is a decision that you don't have to make yourself. You have other friends who are involved and who care about you that can help you figure out what you feel and what to do about it. And you can always talk to me, too. It's what I'm here for."

"I… I know. And I'm really grateful for all of that."

"I feel like you should keep in mind, though, what you told me your brother said. I think he put it best: if you decide to participate, you essentially will be ripping out your trauma for a courtroom full of strangers. That part is up to you, alone. Knowing if you're ready to do that, at least."

"...yeah…"

"On the bright side, it's only day one. You have time to mull it over and come to a decision. It's not like the trial is tomorrow. You learned about this _yesterday_ , I highly doubt there's even a date set."

"How far away do you think it might be?" I say.

"If she somehow wrangles a fantastic lawyer, compiles an entire case, completes every page of paperwork, and submits it all before 5 _today_ , I'd say three months at the _least_."

"Three months," I mutter. "I'll be busy then, I think. I'll have the WRGP, it starts next month and ends in March."

"That long, really?"

"It breaks in December and January for the holidays. And it's just the preliminaries that begin next month, anyways."

"But still… that's a long tournament. That's a lot to think about at the same time this may be going on. Will you keep me posted if anything else about this comes up?"

"Of course," I say. "Obviously, I have… I have time to give this more thought."

"Take it slowly, though. Don't bite off more than you can chew. Talk about whatever you feel comfortable discussing whenever it bothers you. I know how much you like withholding your feelings—"

"I-I don't want to bother anybody!"

"You're not a bother. I know saying it doesn't help you much, but you're not a bother. You and your emotions are _important_."

I find myself writing ' _important_ ' over and over along the margins of the legal pad in wobbly cursive, alongside some penned roses and a half finished shape of somebody's face in profile. I don't even remember drawing them.

"...Aud, do you think it's _worth_ thinking about?"

" _That's_ a question."

"If you think it's just going to cause me more pain, should I think about it at all?"

"If you want my opinion completely separate from you, Silvan—" she pauses to exhale, "—if they were letting somebody out who did _that_ much evil, especially to me, I wouldn't let them rest."

"Really? Despite all of the things it dredges back up?"

"Completely separate from you, Silvan," she repeats. "I could take it, I know myself. But I am not you. And I can't decide for you what you can and can't handle."

I'm still jittery, even after the session, so Audrey lets me keep her pen to fiddle with—it has to be the fifth or sixth pen she's given to me.

Normally I have therapy once a week, unless it's a bad week and I schedule an extra session—like today. I'll probably pop in again on Thursday like normal, just to update her on things and talk more. I have way too much I need to talk about, anyways.

When we exit out into the typically empty waiting room (save for a parent or two, sometimes), I see somebody I didn't expect to see.

Yusei's sitting in one of the chairs by the door, and he perks up instantly when he sees me. Then he spies Audrey, and he gets up out of his chair. "Hi," he says, sticking his hand out, presumably to shake hers. "I'm—"

"Yusei Fudo, I know." Audrey accepts his hand. "I looked you up."

He frowns a little at that. "Oh."

"I hope you didn't have to wait very long," she says. "We just finished up."

"No, it's okay. I'll wait as long as I need to," he answers.

Audrey raises her eyebrows at him.

"I, I didn't know you were coming my way," I say.

"I'm sorry, I probably should have called first—"

"No, it's okay. Did Evan tell you I was here?"

"Yeah. I figured I would come meet you, the rest of us are heading to Satellite today."

"Oh. All right."

"Yeah, Evan said you left too early for him to ask you about coming with us—"

"I would! Like to, I mean. Are… you're going to visit Martha and the kids?"

He nods.

"Yeah, I definitely do want to come," I say. "It's been a long time since I've seen them."

"They'll be happy to see you."

"I won't keep you much longer. I'll see you again on Thursday, right?" Audrey asks, already on her way back toward her office.

"Yeah, of course," I say. "See you then."

"See you then. Have fun at home."

Yusei and I make our way back outside, down the wrought iron and concrete stairs leading down from the upper floor to the ground floor parking lot.

"How are you?" he asks.

"I'm—well, I was mad at you," I blurt.

"'Was'?" he emphasizes.

"You ignored me all weekend! I still don't know what happened with the Ghost thing."

Almost instantly, his face leeches of color. He swallows. "Oh. I—didn't mean to ignore you. I'm sorry."

"I sent you a bunch of texts!"

"I opened my phone to upgrade it this weekend!"

"Do you really have to fiddle with every piece of technology you own?"

"Well, I didn't want to keep coding the simulator. That just stresses me out. Also, you're a hypocrite." His duel runner's parked next to mine. "Anyways, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it."

"Okay, fine. But are you ever going to tell me what happened?"

He sighs. "Okay. But you have to tell me how you're doing first."

"I—don't know, okay? But I never know. I don't know how to feel anymore."

"That's all right. What did Dr. Yukimura say?"

"Just that I know what I can and can't handle. Which is… true, I guess, but I've never tried to 'handle' anything like this before. I'm not used to solving problems like this."

"What? By talking about them? After three months of therapy, you're not used to that?"

"That's different!" I say. "I… I know Audrey now. And it's just us. It's not me telling a bunch of people I've never met that I was trafficked and imprisoned for ten years of my life."

"You told me," he says gently. "And all of our other friends. And we didn't know each other long, either."

"That's different, too," I insist. "I don't know. I just need a lot more time to think."

"And you're going to get it. We'll help you, too—"

"I know, I know. Don't forget to ask for help." I shoot him a flat look. "You should take that advice, too. I told you to be careful, dueling like that right off the bat."

"I—know," he breathes, pressing a hand over his eyes. "I thought it would be a psychic at most."

I swallow. "It… wasn't a psychic."

"It wasn't even human, Silvan."

My stomach seems to drop.

"The Bureau's been developing these prototype dueling robots," he says. "Mikage called them 'Riding Roids', after we figured out what it was."

At that, all the tension in my muscles releases. _Oh_. Not as bad as I thought. "That's how it bypassed the security measures. It already knew them."

"And it had the programming to override them."

So what about it frightened him, then? "What happened?"

"It, uh." He swallows. "It was running a Synchro Killer deck."

"A… Synchro… _Killer_?"

"I couldn't do anything," he manages. "Every move I made went nowhere. I think I won based on pure luck, and when it was over, the thing had been reprogrammed to reset its entire system. So we have no clue if it went haywire or if somebody actually programmed it to start hurting people." He tears his hands through his hair. "Gods, Silvan, the ace monster he pulled was unbelievable. "It called it a 'Meklord Emperor'. Giant white robotic thing, Infinity symbol on its chest. It got summoned on the second turn, and I couldn't summon a single thing with it around. Much less destroy it. And the damage it dealt—somehow, it was _real_."

That's how it was hurting people. A dueling robot dealing real damage?

I hold out the pen Audrey gave to me. He eyes it, looking confused.

"Click it, it helps," I say. "You beat the thing, though. Right?"

"Yes," he admits, giving in and accepting the pen. "Barely. Afterward, my hands wouldn't stop shaking. I knew what the thing finally was, but I almost couldn't stop it. I could have gotten hurt, Jack and Crow could have gotten hurt, and it could have—"

I grab onto his hands. They're shaking _now_. "Hey. Breathe."

"I—sorry. I'm sorry, I…"

"It's okay. I know," I murmur. "You don't have to apologize. I know." _I know you're afraid. It's okay. I know._ "You have so much to think about already."

"I would have—told you sooner. But I didn't want to," he admits.

"I know. You don't have to explain yourself. Thank you for telling me about it. I was just—I was worried sick about you, and I didn't want to bother you if you didn't want to be bothered, but yesterday Crow told me he was worried about you, too… I wanted to talk to you yesterday, except…"

"Yeah," he murmurs. "Sorry, I'm a mess."

"Don't worry. I am, too." I let go of one of his hands to squeeze his shoulder. "We're okay. Right?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I have no clue."

That makes me laugh, which in turn makes him look at me like I'm crazy. But I'm starting to learn to laugh at some of the things that fuck me up.

Together, we pull back out of the parking lot and head out toward Satellite, up the highway that leads to the Daedalus Bridge—brand new and finished about two months ago. It means a lot to the people that live in Satellite, finally being free and able to leave their little island, and I know it means a lot to Yusei, too.

The drive's not long, maybe ten minutes with how light traffic is at this hour, and when we come off of the bridge and into Puzzle, I can already see the difference in the place I once called my home. There are signs of rebuilding everywhere, scaffolds and half-finished buildings and mountains of gravel gathered on huge sheets of plastic. The Bureau has finally started rebuilding this place.

Martha's moved out of her old house since then, into a bigger building given to her by the Bureau for keeping more children. It feels bittersweet to pull up outside, where I see Crow, Jack, and Evan's duel runners parked, because while I'm happy to see that Martha gets a nicer place to raise the kids, I'm always going to miss the familiarity of the house on the edge of the woods. That tiny piece of memory I have left before Arcadia.

I see Crow, Jack, and my brother surrounded by children once we get close enough to them to park, and Martha up on the steps of the orphanage waves to us. My heart swells at the sight of her smiling, here in a better place with better resources and happier children.

When Yusei and I have dismounted, a bunch of kids break toward us on legs bruised from climbing. Miyu finds me first, still as tiny as I last remember her, but her dark hair's long enough to pull into a little braid. I whisk her up into my arms, and she's giggling up a storm. "Silvan!"

"Hey! You keeping Martha on her toes?"

"I dunno! Your hair got shorter!"

"Yours got longer, that's the thing about time!"

I set her down as Takuya barrels into me from behind. "Silvan! You still do magic?"

"It's not magic!" Evan pipes up.

"Whatever it is!" Takuya remarks.

"Sometimes," I say. "Not all the time, though."

"Hello, you two," Martha calls as she comes toward us. Yusei stoops to give her a kiss on the cheek, and I practically throw myself into her arms for a much-needed hug. "How are you?"

"Great now," I say. "I missed you!"

"Well, that warms this old woman's heart." She beams. "I like your hair! How long ago did you cut it off?"

"Only a couple of weeks," I say. "It's a lot lighter and easier to take care of now."

"I bet it is. Why don't you all come inside? I'll show you the place."

"Sure beats a little house, doesn't it?" Crow chimes.

"I'm going to miss that house," Yusei admits. Maybe he feels more homesick about it than I do.

"I know," Martha sighs. "The Bureau's selling it for something, I think. But I made that pretty intelligence woman promise that they wouldn't knock it down."

On the way up the stairs, into the ground floor of the orphanage, Jack claps a hand on my shoulder. "How're you feeling?"

"Oh, you, uh, heard about that," I say flatly.

"Well, we all kinda did. Yusei mentioned it, but Carly told me that Aki wouldn't stop raving over it."

"That's funny, since the three of us haven't spoken in person since it happened. Aki's definitely angrier than I am," I sigh. "Not like she doesn't deserve to be."

"Obviously."

"It's dumb and I hate it, but I personally won't get anywhere by being really super angry. Just like. Maybe halfway in another panic attack."

"Yeah, let's try to avoid those."

"You're a shining beacon of insight, Master of Faster."

"Oh, shut the fuck up."

The main room of the orphanage reminds me a little of the kitchen in the old house. I think the dining table is the same rickety wood table she had then. There's a little inlet that leads to the other half of the room, a full-size kitchen rather than the pitiful little kitchenette in the house.

All around the walls, Martha's hung picture frames. I have to get closer to them to see that they're various photos of us: a photo of the guys when they were younger, some newspaper clippings of Jack, and one of Yusei from his Fortune Cup win.

"I'll add more as they come," Martha says when she notices me looking. "I'm sure you're all going to be very busy this year."

"That's probably an understatement," Evan says.

"That's if I can ever get the program working," Yusei adds bleakley.

"We'll get it working, it'll just take more time," I tell him.

"I'm glad you're optimistic about it."

"Well, I mean, I have nothing else really going for me."

Evan cuffs me playfully on the ear. "No self deprecation."

"That's a tall order," I retort.

"Oh, I did not miss your bickering," Martha puffs. "Let me show you the living room."

We move into the next room, where a shiny-looking brown sofa sits amidst a few of Martha's familiar creaky wooden chairs. I vaguely recognize a man with shaggy dark hair who comes into the room at the sound of all six of us shuffling in.

"Saiga?" Yusei's the first to ask. "Hey, I didn't know you stayed!"

"Well, ah, I don't think I'm of much use in the city anymore," he answers. "Martha puts me to enough work here, and I figure it's all for a fair amount of good."

"I should hope so," Martha scoffs.

"And, hey, you brought the whole gang!" Saiga looks over us. "Jack and Crow… I uh, don't think we've ever met." He sticks his hand out toward my brother. "Saiga."

"I'm Evan. Nice to meet you."

"And uh… ah, I remember you." Saiga turns toward me. "You're—"

"Silvan," I say. "Good to see you again."

"All right then!" he amends. I'm just glad he didn't get far enough to manage 'C'. If only I had the memory to remember people's names after time like six months. "What brings you all here, then?"

"They're getting the tour," Martha says coolly. "It's the first time I've had all my kids home since the bridge opened up, you know."

"Right, well, after you're done with that, I have a thing I want to show 'em."

"Oh." Martha's face scrunches up. "Your meteor problem."

"Meteor?" I repeat. "...what the fuck, what meteor?"

"Where've you been? There was a big thing that crashed down out of the sky last week," Saiga answers. "The Bureau was real quick to clean it up."

"How quick?" Yusei asks.

"Supposedly, it came down in the morning," Saiga says. "They had whatever it was gone by noon."

"Hm. Show me what your 'problem' is, then."

Martha heaves a sigh. "Fine, go talk about your rock theories. Tour later."

Yusei files off after Saiga, followed wordlessly by Jack, Crow, and Evan. Martha laughs when Jack and Evan have to stoop to get under the doorway.

"Not going?" She asks.

"Nah, I don't really care for conspiracy stuff. I'll just wait until they're done." I pick my way around the rickety kitchen table. "Low doorways in this place."

"It used to be an office complex, I think. Narrow hallways, doors that open outward, and such."

I sink down into the chair at the head of the table. Six months ago I was here, newly out… wedged tightly enough between my friends that I forgot how to be afraid for a little bit. How funny it is to miss an absence of fear, even though I can't even remember what it felt like.

"...of course, there are plenty of rooms now, not enough children to fill them. Silvan? Silvan, are you listening to me at all?"

"Yeah, yes!" I stammer. "I uh. Yeah. Sorry."

"What am I going to do with you?" She breathes. "Yusei's mentioned that you're seeing quite a few doctors."

"Just, um. Just one weekly. I have a therapist now."

"That's wonderful."

"Yeah, I um. Otherwise, I go to an actual doctor every few months for a physical to check where I am since I got out. And Aki… a while ago, Aki found a psychotherapist for me to see if I need to."

"A 'psycho-therapist'?" Martha puffs. "That sounds new."

"Her name's Dr. Blythe, she's a pediatrician, but she's also a psychic, so she's started offering to examine the physical effects of psychic abilities on people's bodies," I babble. "Aki's parents found her when she started living with them again. Apparently she put an ad in the paper after Arcadia fell."

"The types of people who come out of this city, I swear," Martha remarks. "That was nice of Aki's parents, to do that for her."

"Yeah. They're worried about her a lot."

"I understand their feelings! It isn't every day you lose a child to a _sociopath_."

Sociopath, what an appropriate word. I twiddle my thumbs. "Can I… um, tell you about something that happened yesterday?"

Martha pulls out a chair for herself at the kitchen table. "Of course. What's on your mind?"

I clench and unclench my fists, wishing I had kept the pen I gave to Yusei. "So I had a panic attack yesterday."

Her eyebrows bunch together. "I'm sorry, honey. How are you feeling today?"

"I'm, uh. I'm okay I think. But it's the thing that made me panic that's worse."

She reaches to put her hand over mine. "What happened?"

"So a former Dark Signer ended up on my doorstep yesterday afternoon. And she told me that Divine is eligible for parole."

Martha, much to my surprise, slams her hand on the table. "Those damned Bureau agents, I'm going to—"

"No, no, okay," I say quickly. "I don't know why they're letting him go. I haven't asked about anything yet. It's only been a day, but… the old Dark Signer wants me and Aki to testify for her. She's going to sue him for the death of her brother and try to get him killed instead."

Martha breathes a long sigh. "I didn't realize we still employed the death penalty."

"Yeah, I… Haven't thought about it for a while. And I certainly didn't think about it in this context."

"This happened yesterday, yes? I should assume this trial isn't happening _tomorrow_."

"Oh, no, of course not… I don't know when it's happening. Not anytime soon, I think. But it is happening."

"...and how do you feel about that?"

"I…" I ball my hand into a fist. "I don't want him dead."

"You don't?" Martha raises her eyebrows at me.

"No. I want him locked up. I want him to know how it feels. I don't want him to get the easy way out, he doesn't deserve it."

Martha's lips press together in a line. "I can't say I know how you feel. But I am sorry. If I had been there all those years ago—"

"None of it is your fault, Martha." I swallow. "You couldn't have done anything. It's okay. But I… I just kind of wanted your advice on this whole thing. Evan said that testifying means standing up in front of a bunch of strangers and telling them what happened, possibly meaning that my word will put him on the chopping block."

Martha slides her other hand on top of mine. "Have you read about criminal trials, Silvan?"

"I-I mean… yeah, a little. I've never really been interested in legal stuff, but I know what the proceedings are like."

"If you choose to testify, and they deem him sane enough, it's likely that Divine himself will be there, too."

Something in me goes cold.

"I… don't remember… reading about that."

"I know your conflict lies in the desire for him to die or live," Martha says softly, "but you must think of the other factors. If you're ready to speak your truths in his presence or not, for one. If there's more on the line for you if you don't find the strength to speak."

"I'm—afraid."

"Of what?"

A shiver rips through my shoulders. "Of—Of going back."

"You won't."

My knee jerks upward and hits the table at the interjection; the voice, on the other side of the room, in the corridor leading toward the dormitories. The guys have all piled into the threshold, Crow and Yusei peeking out from around Jack and my brother's imposing figures, and I don't know how long they've been there.

"Whether or not you pick to say anything," Evan continues, "whenever this thing happens… whether or not you choose to speak, you're not going back."

"I will break that fucker's face," Jack chimes. "You know, if you want me to."

"Yeah, I second that," Crow chimes.

"Divine's not coming anywhere near you," Yusei says. "Not if any of us have a say in it."

"Well, look at that, you've got four good-looking young men pledged to your cause," Martha retorts. "I'd say that counts for something."

"I don't think I'd call them good-looking," I riposte.

That elicits a round of ' _hey_ 's and ' _what the hell'_ s and ' _fuck you_ 's.

"But seriously, thanks for the vote of confidence," I admit. "I appreciate it."

"You don't have to keep quiet about this in front of us, you know," Crow remarks, running a hand through his hair. "We're in this together. Remember that we lost you back then, too, and none of us want that happening again."

"We beat Divine once. We'll do it as many more times as we have to," Yusei adds. "Whether or not you choose to help Misty."

"Thanks," I say, even though the affirmation doesn't really make me feel any less uneasy.

"Martha?" A lean, dark-haired man with glasses and frown lines comes through the doorway from the front room. It's Dr. Schmidtt, the man who operated on Yusei when he took his fall all that time ago. I'm surprised at myself that I even recognize him, after only seeing him a couple of times six months ago.

"What's wrong?"

"We tried Kuzuyama again, but he's still locked in his house. Won't come out."

"Oh, hell," Martha groans, standing abruptly. "Do I have to go out there and get him myself?"

"Who the heck are you talking about?" Crow asks, trailing after Martha as she follows Dr. Schmidtt back into the front room.

Jack puts his hand on top of my head. "I honestly will kick the shit out of him."

"I—don't know how effective that'll be. But I cherish the thought."

"I'll Waste Jack at him, he won't even see it coming," Evan says. "Tag team beatdown."

I don't really know what to say to that, but the mental image of Jack flying at Divine, leg outstretched like special effects in a shitty kung-fu movie, makes laughter bubble up out of me. I guess that eases Jack and my brother enough, because they're both smiling a little as they head after Crow, Martha, and Dr. Schmidtt.

"Do you have plans tonight?" Yusei asks.

I stand. "Besides not sleeping, no."

"What a coincidence, me too."

"Sounds like we're stargazing tonight, then," I say flatly. "Are you having trouble sleeping again?"

"I… yeah," he admits. "Nightmares."

"Ah."

"Now that you're in the loop about the Ghost thing, I kind of feel okay telling you about them. I don't want to worry Jack and Crow more by spewing about my nightmares to them."

"I'll listen as long as you talk. And you can tell me more about this meteor nonsense."

"Yeah, I'll tell you all about that, too. Saiga's back in his room down the hall, still combing through stolen security footage like an alien conspiracy theorist."

"I guess I could learn to tolerate conspiracy theories for five minutes. I need a break from talking about my problems, anyways. A really _long_ break, preferably."

He sighs and claps a hand to my shoulder, fingers finding that scar on my neck, as we become the last ones to leave the room. I'm fond of that touch, that specific one only he gives me.

My friends are all familiar with the way contact grounds me, and it's become my favorite gesture they've all adopted; my brother's hugs, Aki's little strokes of her hands on my face or through my hair, Jack putting his hands on my shoulders or on my head, Crow rubbing warmth into my arms or ruffling my hair. Even Ruka grabs onto my wrist if we walk or sit close enough to each other, and Rua almost always leans against me whether or not he's standing up. Only Yusei has that little secret part of the past, that late night in Martha's old kitchen, and it manifests in that tiny soothing gesture—his hand on top of my scar.

We trail upstairs, one after the other; my phone vibrating in my back pocket nearly makes me jump out of my skin.

 **TEATIME TEAM: Aki Izayoi:** _still on for later?_

 **TEATIME TEAM: Carly Nagisa:** _yesss i get off of work at 3!_

I fumble with my phone in the effort to text back quickly.

 **TEATIME TEAM: Silvan Levine:** _ye the guys n i are in satellite visiting w martha but i should be back by 3_

 **TEATIME TEAM: Carly Carmine:** _yay! Cant wait to see you guys! :D_

 **TEATIME TEAM: Aki Izayoi:** _GODS SAME_

 **TEATIME TEAM: Aki Izayoi:** _SILVAN AND I HAVE LOADS TO TELL U, TEXTING REALLY DOESNT COVER IT_

I swallow, shut my phone, and slide it back into my pocket.


	35. Heartbreaker

At the end of the month, I take a Saturday morning shift to make up for going to the Participant's Ball for the WRGP in the evening. I've sort of been looking forward to it all month, since it's the first event our team will get to go to before the practice tourneys and the prelims start. A party, I think, might do all of us some good.

The past couple of weeks have been… interesting. It started off with Yusei and Crow making Jack go look for a job, which he didn't do, of course. Instead, he befriended a Bureau officer and foiled a large scale gang operation, which I guess he's telling everybody that he does on the daily now. I had a shift stacking books in the library a week or so later when Yusei called me, rambling something about ghosts and the twins. I'm not totally clear on what happened, but I think it's fine, because Yusei really isn't, either.

I've been keeping to myself in the meantime, going to work and therapy and kickboxing like clockwork. I've been hanging out a lot more with Aki and Carly, too, doubling our coffee dates to twice a week instead of once.

I've been reading more about legal proceedings, and I've been emailing back and forth with Mikage. She's looking into it, but the story right now is that an 'anonymous donor' has been getting involved in prisoner cases and paying bail in no particular pattern or order. Yesterday, I got some copies of legal documents in the mail, so Misty is already going on ahead with her intent to sue. I don't know when this court date is supposed to happen yet, or when Divine was originally supposed to be released. Mikage is also looking into that second one, but still… Saying that I've been very uneasy lately might be an understatement.

I'd just like tonight to unwind. Hang out with my friends. Maybe wile my way into a shot or two if there's alcohol around. I badly need a break from thinking.

So, anyways, here I am, trapped underneath a car for part of a six hour shift. I've been here since opening, and already this car came in because something fell out of it on the highway, besides the three other cars and the duel runner that I have to finish and clear routine checks on before the end of my shift.

Originally, when I was hunting for jobs, I never dreamed of working in an auto shop. I didn't really see myself as qualified (for anything, really), but when I came in with Evan for an interview, the manager had us take a test full of all of this random technological stuff—which I guess I passed, because they hired me. And anything I didn't know how to fix when I started, I've since learned to fix. I've come a long way from scrounging to build a simulator in my little room in Arcadia. Even that simulator has graduated to being Yusei's WRGP project.

Regrettably, _that_ particular project is still going nowhere. Yusei's actually taken a break from implementing any code on the simulator because he's tired of rebuilding it again and again. Now all I've seen him doing is combing obsessively through what he's already written, writing more and rewriting more and practically ripping his hair out over how much time he's losing.

I wish I could do more to help him. I bring him new coding manuals every opportunity I can, but of course it's not enough. It's nowhere near enough.

I almost smack my forehead on an 8-cylinder when my phone starts buzzing; I have to bend my arm backward at an uncomfortable angle to get it out of my back pocket and answer the call. " _What_?"

" _Silvan!_ " Aki's voice filters in from the other side. " _I'm sorry! Did_ — _Did I get you at a bad time?_ "

"It's fine," I mutter, dropping the phone down on the floor next to my head. I can't reach the speaker-phone button, but luckily I have the volume turned loud enough that I can still hear Aki pretty well. "If you're calling, it must be important."

" _I just… have you seen Yusei today?_ "

My stomach immediately sinks downward. "Yes? He was over this morning and then he had a work call. Is everything okay?"

" _I just wanted to make sure. He's… He's missing._ "

A pause.

" _Missing_?" I say.

" _I mean, we think he is! He won't answer his phone, and Jack and Crow also said that they saw him when he left for the call. But he hasn't been home since, and that was almost four hours ago! He should be done by now_ —"

"Okay, okay, do we… what proof do we have?" I'm thinking almost quicker than I can speak. "Maybe he got held up! Maybe something—"

"— _Crow got a call on their landline!_ " Aki's voice is tight. " _It was somebody he didn't know. But the person_ told _him that something had happened to Yusei_."

"...okay, so what the _fuck_ are we doing about it?!"

" _I called Mikage, and she and I are out looking. So are Jack, Crow, and Evan_."

"I—" I almost say _I'm coming to you right now_ , but I realize that I still have an axle two inches from my nose. "...I'm at work."

I swear I hear Aki mutter a curse. " _How long are you there for?_ "

"I took six hours to make up for not working tonight, I'm almost four in." I pause. "Are you okay? You sound _really_ not."

" _Of course I'm not! Our friend is gone and something awful could have happened to him!_ "

"Okay, I know! I get it! But if you're strung really high you're not going to have a good time trying to focus on what's important! Just keep your head, and I'll come find you as soon as my shift is over, okay?"

"... _fine._ "

"Keep me in the loop, please. And please try to stay out of trouble. Remember your temper. Only use your powers if you have to."

" _Okay, thanks,_ mom _._ " The line goes dead.

Whoa. I can't remember the last time Aki hung up on me, if she's ever hung up on me before. It's pretty early in the morning for her to be so angry, but at the same time, there's a really good reason for her to be.

I keep my phone on the floor next to me for the rest of the time that I'm flat underneath the car, re-affixing bolts to the undercarriage, just in case anybody else calls me. Yusei missing is certainly not what I expected to come out of this morning, but now I'm very nervous. My hands are shaking as I feel around for a different wrench.

Just this morning, we climbed down from the roof and I made us coffee; we were still wrapped in blankets from sitting outside for hours. He took a nap on the couch while I got ready for work, and as I was leaving he was on the phone with someone requesting a house call.

I wonder if something happened at his house call? Or after it? It can't be one of those times he goes incommunicado. He only does that if he's home and he knows he can afford to go offline.

I work obsessively through the rest of my shift, needing to keep my hands busy in order to keep my mind from careening off the rails. If they haven't found him by the time I'm off, I know for sure I'm going to have a panic attack. And if it turns out it's just a mistake or a misunderstanding, I'm going to be _so_ fucking angry.

I'm so obsessive in my work that I finish my to-do list twenty minutes before my shift is over, so I sit there alone in the desk chair at the workbench until it's time for me to clock out. After that, the first thing I do is race home. If anybody is there at all, it'll either be a good sign, or somebody who knows what's going on will be there.

Actually, I get both when I shove the garage door open and wrench Hiraeth in next to Electric Vertigo. Evan's on the couch, leisurely sipping from a coffee mug, and Aki stops what looks like mid-rant to look at me.

"I'm gonna _guess_ that you found him," I say.

"Good guesser," Evan says, raising his mug toward me as if for a toast. "We found him in a soda truck eight miles west of downtown."

"In a… _what?!_ "

"A soda truck," Aki retorts. I shoot her a look.

"Apparently, he went to his house call, somebody bonked him on the head, and he woke up in the back of a truck," Evan explains. "Someone looking to fill spaces on their WRGP team wanted him, and asking nicely apparently wasn't their favored tactic. Also, are you two going to throw hands? Should I be stepping outside?"

"I live here," I sneer. "And I'm not the one who snapped at my friend for telling her to keep her head."

"I don't need you to keep a curb on me, _Silvan_ , especially not when you couldn't even lend a hand," Aki fires back.

"You wanna pay my bills? Be my guest. I'll take your place and start falling all over myself for Yusei, seems like an easier job anyways."

Evan makes this squeaky ' _oh'_ noise. Aki turns bright red. "You—You can't… I don't…"

"Yeah, I know, 'no I don't,' whatever. I'm making food."

Aki, still stuttering through a reply, follows me to the fridge where I go digging for anything I can eat. "You… how… how did––"

"Gimme a break, I can read you like a book, Aki. Quickly and damn easily."

"You don't have to—to embarrass me!"

"Even if I did tell anybody, I have no credibility anyways. No one ever believes the shit I tell them," Evan remarks, smiling cheekily over the back of the couch toward us.

"I didn't embarrass you in front of anyone," I continue. "But I don't appreciate you snapping at me this morning, I was worried enough and I just wanted you to try to keep yourself under wraps. You and I both know what emotions do to our powers."

"...you didn't have to use my emotions _against_ me."

"You're right, but I'm also right that it was the reason you were angry. You've been getting touchy lately when Yusei gets involved in things. You really didn't have to take it out on me. _You_ called _me_."

She tosses her hands up. "It's done with anyways!"

"Great! I'm sick of talking about it. Mind moving that way so I can close the door?"

Aki shuffles awkwardly to the side to let me shut the fridge and set a container of leftover soup on the counter. "Sorry. I guess."

"Me too. That's not going to leave this room if you don't want it to, by the way. I'm a bitch, but I'm not _that_ much of a bitch." I set a pot on the stove. "One thing I don't know is how long you've been in this."

"I—I don't know. I don't even know if it's right yet. If I like _him_ , or—or…"

"Or what he did," I murmur. "Yeah, I have that existential crisis all the time."

"Really?"

"Oh yeah. Half the time when we hang out, I'm never sure if I'm close with him now because we're friends or if we're closer now because I'm grateful for what he did for me in Arcadia. And I'm never sure if he's actually fond of me or if he's fond of the childhood memory of me." I shrug as I ladle soup into the pot. "Audrey says it's normal, it comes with the abuse history."

"You really shouldn't be saying that so casually," Evan calls from the couch.

"Find me a new coping mechanism, then," I say.

"Wait, but… how do we know at all, then?" Aki presses.

"We don't," I say. "I mean, I definitely don't. I have no clue. But I also usually have worse things I worry about."

"That… doesn't help!"

"Ah, I know. But I don't know what else to tell you." I click on the burner and reach for a wooden spoon from the holder by the sink. "I mean, feel it out and shoot your shot."

"Sh-Shoot my… _what_?!"

"Silvan, don't break her," Evan remarks.

"I'm not!" I insist. "It's what I'd do. Probably."

" _Probably_!" Aki's cheeks burn bright pink. "When have you ever been in remotely this same situation?!"

"Plenty," I say. "They just never last more than one night."

"You… You never told me about _that_!"

I stick the spoon into the pot. "Sorry, did you want to hear every egregious detail about my sex life?"

"But you… it's been six months!"

"And apparently I'm desirable. Surprise!"

Aki shakes her head, cheeks still bright with color. "I'm not… one to tell you what to do with your life. But I definitely don't think that one-night-stands are even _remotely_ the same thing as this."

"I know, I know. But you can't do stuff unless you shoot your shot."

"I'm not gonna… 'shoot my shot' or whatever, until I know for sure what's going on with me." She puts 'shoot my shot' in air quotes. "When the hell do you have the time to… _do_ _stuff_?"

"No, yeah, I had the same question," Evan chimes.

"I mean, so far it's been people that I have a schedule similarity with. There was a guy who used to work at the garage, so there's that. This one lady I who helped find books for some research project. And one time it was a barista—"

"Uh, okay, wow! Anybody we _know_?"

"Obviously not, otherwise you would have known about it by now."

"But how can you just… do that? No-strings-attached?"

"They're just distractions," I say. "Not much else. I needed a break from needing to feel wanted."

"You don't get hung up?"

"I used to feel a lot," I say simply. "Too much, I think. Now, I just… don't. I dunno."

Aki sighs. "I guess I just feel too much, too."

"I know," I say. "That isn't your fault. But sometimes I think it could be better than feeling nothing at all."

"I don't know about that. Feeling things hurts too much most of the time to be worth it."

"Ahhh… that's fair." I put the lid on over the pot to let the soup simmer a little. "Do you want to stay for dinner? We can take you to the party with us if you'd like."

"I should probably get home. My parents wanted to have dinner with me before I go."

"Okay. Can I at least drive you home?"

"I… guess. That'd be nice. Thanks."

I take Aki back home an hour or so after that, and it's a bit of an awkward ride. We really don't chat at all except to say goodbye when I drop her off, and I feel like it's definitely because we never had a full resolve to the conversation in the kitchen.

She's right, she's so emotional, but I'm used to her overly emotional responses to things that happen. I think some part of her is used to it, too—and I never want her to apologize for it. If I could be unapologetically emotional, I would too. She's entitled to that, after all. After everything she's been through. I don't know if I could afford to be emotional anymore.

I wonder if she's upset at me for not telling her about the sex stuff? It's been between me and Evan so far. And I've only confided in him about it because I promised never to keep secrets from him, and also because he's caught me more than once coming home at the crack of dawn. And it's never really intentional. It just sort of… happens. And I let it—it's time I don't have to think through, I can just feel and feel and feel.

Then, of course, there's the Yusei bullshit. I've been skeptical about it for a while. She always looks at him too long, gravitates toward him when they're in the same room, flushes a little when he stands too close to her. It's quite the leap from the resentment she had for him not three months ago. I wonder if she'd ever talk to me more about it. Probably not without me spilling a few secrets of my own.

In the effort to feel and look less tired for the party tonight, I make myself take a nap when I get home. I curl up downstairs on the couch, all of the lamps around me on, and for once I get a couple seconds of sleep before Evan shakes me awake to eat something before we get ready.

Naps are the only way I ever really get sleep nowadays—I like my room and I like this place, but often if I lie there in the dark, I'll wake up and I won't remember where I am.

Anyways, after dinner, Evan and I stand side by side, half of each of us visible in the long mirror on the back of my door. Evan adjusts his blazer. "We look nice."

I've just finished coating my lips with a layer of shiny red lipstick. "Don't be ridiculous. We're the most attractive people in the entire world."

"That's subjective—"

"A bunch of beautiful boys are going to see you and fall the fuck in love whether or not they're straight, you look so good."

Evan rattles with laughter, and I watch my reflection smile. Every chance I get I bolster his ego, especially in any remotely romantic standpoint. I know he's still in a lot of pain over Kiryu, but this is the only way I can think to try and make him feel better. At least until I can finally, finally figure out where Kiryu has gone. Misty and Carly are alive, so I have to hope that Kiryu is, too.

"How 'bout you?" Evan remarks. "I've never seen you wear lipstick."

"I bought it earlier this week. I wanted to feel pretty enough to forget real life."

"You really have been looking forward to this all week, haven't you?"

"I just need a distraction," I sigh, adjusting my jacket. It's leather, and a few shades darker red than my lipstick. "Alcohol or someone good-looking, I don't care which."

He breathes a long sigh. "Just keep me in the loop."

"I know, I know. I'll be careful."

"I know," he parrots, adjusting his red tie as he moves away from the mirror. I fluff my hair a little and smooth the lines of my pink dress. I bought this dress with Aki and Carly a couple weeks ago; it's made of a soft, shiny fabric that clings to me and cuts up the front of my leg a little. Since I started making enough money to buy clothes, I've grown a new appreciation for them and the way some of them make me look. I'm far away from the Arcadia uniform now, and it feels wonderful.

"Hey, we're going to be late." Evan's voice drags me out of my reflection. "We're meeting everyone else in the parking garage below the convention center."

I jam my phone, my keys, my lipstick, and my wallet into the pockets of my jacket and totter downstairs after Evan; I've never ridden in high heels before, but there's always a first time for everything.

The wind bites at my bare legs on the ten minute ride from the square to the convention center, but my body is buzzing with the anticipation of the evening. It's very rare for me to get the opportunity to distract myself, and I definitely needed one this week.

Our friends are clustered near the elevator: I see Aki in a brilliant red dress and long gloves, the picture of elegance, and the twins each dressed their best, but I think Yusei and Crow came in what they wear all the time. It almost makes me want to laugh. My friends, just working their way through another normal day.

Evan and I park, dismount, and converge to meet the others, close enough that his arm brushes mine, and there's a second of silence as the five of them take us in.

"Forget the dress code, you guys?" Evan retorts.

"Didn't want to upstage you," Crow laughs. "You two look really nice!"

"We're the best looking pit crew in the world," I say. "Working for the most underdressed _team_ in the world."

"Hey, if we dressed up like you, we'd be so pretty we'd kill the competition on sight." Crow winks at me. "Gotta give them at least a little bit of a chance."

"All right, that's fair. We going upstairs anytime soon?" I say. "Where's Jack at?"

"Left by himself. I think he picked Carly up."

"I'll be absolutely floored if he's wearing the same thing he was wearing this morning."

"Me too," Crow scoffs.

The seven of us start toward the elevator up to the main hall, and as I pass Yusei, I say, "You okay?"

He looks… I don't know, pale for some reason. He gives me a slow nod, lips a thin line. "I'm fine. You look amazing."

"Thanks," I say, though the comment feels like a poor attempt to change the subject. "Are you sure you don't need some water or something? You really look like you're about to be sick."

"I'll be okay. I'll… I'll tell you about it later."

Uh oh. That can't be good.

We squeeze uncomfortably into the elevator, and the air is heavy and silent; I count the beeps the floor indicator makes as we pass upward through four floors, finally stopping on the ground level, and we all unfold ourselves out into the main hall.

Wall to wall, fairy lights have been hung like little glowing vines, colorful streamers and banners float along columns and around window panes, and there are screens mounted around displaying the 'WRGP' logo. The air is warm and sweet with the smell of food, the sound of people chattering, and the faint bite of alcohol.

"Classy," Evan notes.

"I wish we were invited to more of these," I sigh.

Yusei, next to me, just shifts uncomfortably like he wants to go home. "Right, so, we socialize for an hour and then we leave. Great."

I slip my arm into the crook of his elbow, and he flinches so hard that his shoulder bumps against mine. "Remember to breathe, right?"

He doesn't seem to relax. "Right."

I don't think we've been walking around for five minutes before Carly surfaces, dressed in a pastel blue gown and carrying her clunky DSLR camera on a strap around her neck.

"Hi everybody!" She says. She raises her camera a little. "Mind if I take a picture of you?"

"Do you mind if we have everyone but Jack?" Crow asks, motioning for us all to get closer to make a good shot for Carly.

"Hm? He was right here a second ago…" She swivels around, searching for a second, and then stands on her toes and waves. "Jack! Come let me take your picture!"

I look up over Yusei's shoulder and finally catch a glimpse of Jack, who's dressed in a ridiculously intricate white suit, threaded and buttoned with gold and embroidered with splashes of violet––complete with a very out of place, almost funny-looking wide-brimmed hat.

Before I can think of anything to say, Crow retorts, "Where the _fuck_ did you get the money for that dumb ass monkey suit?"

"Why does it matter?" Jack sniffs. "I can't believe you two didn't even change. And I have to stand next to you."

"Oh, don't worry about us," Yusei chimes. "Everyone else will be too busy looking at you."

"I'm checking our bank account later," Crow hisses, low enough that I almost can't hear, "and if it's empty, I'm gonna kill him."

"I _told_ you to separate bank accounts," Evan mutters.

"Smile!" Carly's voice says, and everyone around me whips their heads forward. I plaster on a smile, fingers curling in to Yusei's elbow like I'm the thing keeping him standing. He really doesn't look well. But how much of it is something bothering him, and how much of it is him hating being in a scene like this? Or maybe it's both?

"Do you need me to stick to you?" I murmur when Carly's put the camera down to flip through her photos. Yusei inclines his head to me a little, like he's catching my whisper. "Tell me how to help you."

"I, ah… Don't know if you can."

"Do you want to talk? Maybe there's an outside somewhere." I scan the glass viewpoint not too far to our right, and what might be a hint of a garden outside. "Fresh air, you know?"

He shakes his head a little. "I just want to be left alone right now, Silvan."

I draw my hand back from him. The lights start to dim into flickers, and the noise in the room centers back far away from us, near a tall staircase leading back further into the hall. The landing at the top is banistered with glass, and from this far away, all I can see is the shape of a person up on top.

"Let's go see!" Carly pulls Jack along, and the rest of us follow. I drift back, away from the group, and I pin my eyes on the backs of my friends' heads as we all start toward whoever's presenting. Aki's gravitated in next to Yusei, though she's not nearly brave enough to touch him.

The bitter, angry part of me thinks that it doesn't deserve to be kept out of the loop like this, especially since this is the first I've seen of Yusei all day. Especially after the hullabaloo with the soda truck. I try to push it back to favor whatever empathy I can muster for whatever he's feeling, whatever this is—whether he's uncomfortable in this situation, still thinking about whatever happened in the soda truck, or… or, I don't know, gods forbid he's getting worse about the Ghost and its Synchro Killers.

Once we're close enough, I spot Yeager up on the landing, holding a champagne flute. It's an interesting image, especially considering that Yeager should be the next person to take on the role of Director after the death or disappearance or _whatever_ of Goodwin, and yet… supposedly, there's a new Director. Interesting that Yeager is playing the social part—maybe the new Director doesn't favor publicity the same way Goodwin seemed to.

Yeager raises his glass, and when he speaks, his voice booms like it's been amplified; I realize that his image is being projected through the screens on the walls around us, and some microphone I can't find is throwing his voice around the hall. "Thank you all for joining us tonight! Neo Domino has gone through so many changes in such a short time, especially the completion of the Daedalus Bridge! The citizens of Satellite and the citizens of Neo Domino can finally meet and participate in legal Turbo Duels, so I say, what better way to celebrate than with a tournament like no other? With that, may I say, welcome to our celebration marking the start of the very first World Racing Grand Prix!"

Applause rolls through the glittering crowd around us, and light brightens the room again. Yusei pushes past Aki, away from the crowd, until I can't see him anymore.

"I need a drink," I say. Nobody follows me when I stalk off in search of something else to keep my attention.

I find a bartender in a nice suit on the other end of the hall, standing behind a table, mixing drinks for people. I'm not quite of drinking age yet, but it's not like that's going to stop me. A year isn't too much older to pretend to be. I scrunch the sleeves of my jacket up a little, making sure the edges of my tattoos are visible, and flash a smile as I elbow past a lady in a slinky green dress. "Hi."

He doesn't bat an eyelash. "What can I get you?"

"Cosmo, please."

The first time I had alcohol might have been a couple months ago—I got it from Jack, who actually is the only one of us who can legally drink. He had two bottles of vodka for some reason and I was curious, and we somehow ended up drinking ourselves to near-death while watching a competitive cooking show in my living room. It tasted horrible, but it made me feel and care less, even though the morning that followed was pretty miserable.

The bartender hands me a pretty little glass tumbler, and I smile again as a thanks. I need to drive tonight, so I'll probably drink less than I'd like to. That first time I drank a ton, I tried matching Jack shot for shot, and miraculously, I got pretty close to him. He said you build up a tolerance if you drink more, but your tolerance is also linked to things like caffeine and prescription medicine. I was happy to learn that, luckily, I'm no lightweight. Though the hangovers feel like it's the exact opposite.

I wander about the floor for a little while, taking sips of my drink and examining the groups of people meandering around and striking up conversation, laughing, drinking. How many of these people are participants? Volunteers and workers? Bureau people? There are enough partygoers here to make me realize just how big this tournament actually is. How many duelists must have come to _our_ city to participate.

For a while, I'm just people watching. Admiring gowns and suits and peoples' prettily-done hair, the sound of glasses clinking and bits of friendly laughter. Two more glasses later, I wander into Carly and Jack again; Carly is flipping through her camera and Jack is looking down over her shoulder.

"Having fun?" I ask.

"Oh, definitely!" Carly excitedly brandishes her camera window to me. "I've taken a lot of great shots so far!"

Jack nods toward my glass. "How many is that?"

"Just three. Maybe less, he went pretty heavy on the cranberry juice." I take another sip. "Also, that suit is really ridiculous, but you kind of make it look good."

Jack puffs up a little. "I'll take that as a compliment."

I beam at him. Jack, especially, has grown on me these past few months. There's been a pleasant change in him that I can't quite place. For a second, I'm thrown back to when I first met Carly on that bridge underground, with our feet hanging off toward the sea of Ener-D below, when she told me that he missed his friends. He's retained quite a few of his little high-class, spoiled quirks, but I think having his friends back has done some wonders for him in other departments.

"How 'bout you?" Carly asks. "That's such a pretty color on you, where did that dress even come from?"

"That little boutique over by the card shop. A couple highway exits away from Daimon? I found it with Aki a little while ago."

"Well it looks great on you."

"I mean, same to you, light blue is really good on your skin tone."

"Ughhhhhhh," Jack complains. Carly laughs at him, and I catch Jack smile a little at the sound.

"Have you seen anyone else since Yeager made his little… speech, or whatever?" I ask.

"I think the twins beelined to the food, and Crow went with them to make sure they didn't get into trouble. Aki and Evan, I dunno, maybe socializing like normal people, and Yusei's uh… he's just being Yusei."

I swirl my drink around in my glass, watching it drip back down the sides. "What's going on with him? Did I miss something?" _He usually tells me everything_ , is what I almost say.

"Ah… You heard about the thing today, didn't you?"

"I would have been out looking for him, too, but I took a longer morning shift so I could come to this," I answer.

"Right. Well, there was that, and afterward, he was all strung up about this lady that came to try to fight him _literally_ right after he got out of the truck. Then right after _that_ he wanted to try out some new dueling techniques that didn't involve him using Synchro Summoning—"

"So this _is_ still about the Ghost."

"I don't even really know anymore. I guess so. He's all over the place nowadays, I don't know what's going on in his head. I don't know how to get into his head anyways." I see the truth, unspoken, on his face: _We can't talk like nothing has changed._ "I can assume he's not talking to you about it though, huh?"

"Ha, nope." I take a slightly larger mouthful of my drink. "He said he wanted to be alone."

"And you're not bitter."

"Oh, no, of course not."

Jack gives a wolfish grin.

"It's… whatever," I clarify. "We both have our secrets we keep from each other."

"Eh, I know it's easy to worry about him, especially after all the shit you two got caught up in together, but I think you've got plenty to think about without him adding to it. Yusei gets like this sometimes. All silent and broody. Has to be alone. It's been that way since we were kids."

"Yeah, I guess so… This sounds horrible, but I've been looking forward to this party all week, and I'd rather not spend it being worried."

"Go drink more then," Jack remarks. "I'll be your DD."

"My fucking hero." I raise my glass to him like I'm making a toast, and then throw back the rest of it on my way back across the hall to the bar. My shoes make pretty clicking noises on the floor as I walk; it's something I like to listen to. It's strange, but fantastic, how many things I'm allowed to have now. So many new, little bits and pieces I'm suddenly allowed to enjoy.

The bartender sees me coming, and I hand him my tumbler for a refill. A voice to my left says, "You look like you're having a wonderful time."

I pivot a little on my heels, toward the man leaning against the table next to me, a glass in one hand. He's smiling this lazy, striking smile that pulls a little higher on one side. Trouble, probably. But pretty.

"I am," I say. "What about you?"

"Ah." He waves a hand. "I never know anyone at these things."

"Doesn't mean you can't still have a nice time." I take my glass back from the bartender with a murmured 'thank you'.

"Are you from this city?"

"Yep," I say. "Born and raised. I take it you're new and around just for the tournament?"

"Hm, is it obvious?" That _grin._

"You do have a little bit of an accent," I say. "Where do you come from?"

"Córdoba."

 _Spain_. "A world traveler."

"Mm. Ever been outside of your city?"

"It's a dream to chase."

"It's a big city," he muses. " _I_ could spend a lifetime exploring it."

"It looks different to everyone," I say.

"What does it look like to you?"

"You ask a lot of questions," I say, my voice half muffled by my glass.

"I see a pretty girl by herself, I get curious." He shrugs, flashes that gods-damned smile. "Not here with anybody? Are you a contender?"

"Those are gonna be some hard 'maybe's," I say. I start away from the bar table, to draw the conversation away from the eavesdropping bartender and other people looking for drink refills.

"You like your mystery, don't you?"

"It's more fun that way, I think." I shrug. "You _must_ be a contender. You have a duelist's look about you."

"Do I?" He runs a hand through his artfully tousled auburn hair. "Is that a compliment?"

"Depends. Are you a _good_ duelist?"

He laughs. "I guess you'll have to find out when the tournament starts. If I were good, could I count on you to cheer me on?"

"We'll see," I tell him, flashing a smile. I see the curiosity on his face. This is certainly going to go somewhere, if I let it.

"So, if we're going to be mysterious," he says, his voice lowering a little, his eyes flickering down toward the ground, "does that mean I'm not allowed to know your name?"

"It's—Silvan," I say coolly.

That smile again. He has a face almost like someone chiseled it out of stone: hard, angular jawline, the only softness in the dimple in his left cheek. His eyes flash back up over my face. They're a brown like perfectly worn sea glass. "I'm Andore."

"How old are you, Andore?"

" _That's_ a question," he says. "Twenty three. Youngest in my team."

"Youngest, really?"

"My teammates have quite a few years on me, that much is true. But age doesn't equate to skill. Jack Atlas and Yusei Fudo are here, after all, and they're barely twenty."

"Mm, those two?" I wave a careless hand and give a smile that feels somehow secret. "Have you ever _actually_ seen them duel? I hear they're not as good as everyone says."

"If my luck is good, I'll get to try out against them for myself." He raises his eyebrows. "Will I get to meet you on a battlefield?"

"But the _mystery_ , Andore," I say, taking another sip of my drink.

"Right, yes. No fun in that. I suppose we'll just have to see."

"H-Hey!" Carly fumbles up to us, beet red, with her camera. "Can—Can I get a picture? For Domino Daily?"

Andore inclines his head toward me. "Do you mind?"

I'm brave enough to slide closer to him, balancing my drink in my right hand and sliding my left up around him to rest against his shoulder blade. We're both very stiff for a moment, until he rests his other hand against my hip.

Carly snaps a couple of photos, then squeaks a "Thanks!" and scurries away, her eyes lingering on me. I can't tell if she's flustered, or if the look is something like an affirmation. Part of me is surprised she didn't try to make more small talk.

I become aware of Andore's hand at my hip and boldly throw back the rest of my drink. Andore laughs a little. "Hope you're not dizzy yet."

"Don't you worry about me," I say. "I'm doing just fine. I still have to ride home."

"Ah, so you _do_ ride, at least?"

I'm close enough that I can put my finger over his lips. I have to bite down the urge to make the innuendo that the alcohol coaxes onto my tongue. "All right, fine, _yes_ , but that's all you get to know."

"And this dedication to secrecy?" His breath warms my hand. "What about that?"

"Do you tend to mix business with pleasure, Andore?"

"Usually those two things always mix," he says, smiling crookedly. "Don't like your job, Silvan?"

"Where I work, we focus on the _work_ ," I say. "Not so much the _pleasure_ part. Pleasure's for after the job's done."

"Fair enough." He shrugs. "A girl who rides and looks like you can't be here by herself, though."

"I didn't come here by myself, but I am _here_ alone," I emphasize.

"So am I." He shrugs. "It's a good thing I put down enough wine to talk to you, then."

That makes it hard to hold down a grin.

He offers me his arm. "Care to walk with me? Maybe I could introduce you to my friends."

I slide my hand into the crook of his elbow. He doesn't flee from me the way Yusei seemed to; as a matter of fact, he feels like he's settling in toward me. Straying a bit closer.

I'm trying to decipher what I'm feeling, if it's anything at all other than the warmth all the alcohol has built in my chest, but it feels like it could also be something else. Something… outside of me?

I swivel my head around. That's odd. Does no one else feel the ground trembling? The chatter's still calm and jovial. There's ice in my veins now. That lack of sound and the fury in the back corner of my mind rise up to meet in the pit of my stomach; I don't know what it is, but it doesn't feel right and I don't like it.

I whirl, tugging Andore with me toward the ground, a shout of ' _get down'_ caught in my throat, just as the glass viewpoint separating us from the garden walkway outside shatters. Andore shoulders over me to hide me from the spray of broken glass. Through the now gaping hole in the viewpoint, a tank-sized duel runner rolls in, and several dusty-looking men a few years my senior jump off of the back of it.

They start shattering everything. Tables and chairs, the bartender's table covered in wine glasses. It becomes a mad dash for the partygoers to get out.

Andore rises, and I see him trying to make a decision about what to do: turn his attention to me, or to the literal party crashers. I elbow past him and say, "Watch this." And I raise a hand to Waste.

One of the big, leather-clad party crashers goes flying backward into the viewpoint. They hit the glass with a satisfying 'crunch' as the window at their back begins to fracture.

It's been months since I've Wasted in an uncontrolled environment. The psycho-therapist Aki recommended me to told me to take it easy, to not use my powers while my body heals from all the years of constant stress and abuse. The only time I really do anything is when I casually Waste something across the room to Evan, or I try to keep the prototype from exploding. It could be the alcohol persuading me to break my own rules, but then again, this feels so _good_. Like stretching a muscle I haven't used in eons.

Two of them spot me, my hand outstretched, and bolt immediately. A third takes a step in our direction, as if trying to figure out what's happening. I throw my glass as hard as I can at them, and it seems to bounce before it shatters across their feet.

Somewhere behind me, the air shifts as if in a warm breeze. I know that feeling—that power and who it belongs to.

I let the party crasher plummet to the ground, feeling like something's about to drip from my nose, and turn to see Aki's Black Rose Dragon spreading tendrils of thorns outward toward the tank. It picks it up, seems to weigh it, and then throws it straight back out of the gaping hole in the viewpoint.

Bureau agents swarm the floor, wielding duel disks and batons, and just like that, whoever the gate-crashers were are gone. But so is the party, and with it, my good mood.

I remember Andore—still at my back. I didn't even think about anything other than showing off. I didn't think that he's probably, maybe even _certainly_ , a common person.

"I…" I trail off, pivoting toward him a little, not knowing what exactly to say. But he—he looks like someone's turned a light on inside him.

"That's… _phenomenal_ ," he sputters, eyes wide and glittering. "I've. Never seen anything like that, how did…"

Somehow, in knowing that I didn't actually scare this person away by being stupid and impulsive, my heart careens upward in me.

"Do you… wanna go somewhere with me?" I hear myself say.

He looks around, at the wreckage of the party, of the almost complete lack of guests and the Bureau agents scrambling around and beginning to tape off the hole in the viewpoint, and then back to me. That smile again. "Anywhere."


	36. On An Overpass

It's literally the crack of dawn when I slink up the ladder into the loft, my shoes clenched in one hand.

"Geez— _fuck_!" I sputter. Evan is sitting on the landing, in mussed hair and his bedclothes. "Don't! Freak me the fuck out like that!"

A slow smile spreads across his face. "How was your evening?"

I throw my shoe at him.

He Wastes it away, into the wall, and is laughing softly as I hurry for the safety of my bedroom.

I take an hour or so to shower and dress myself in shredded jeans and a comfy grey sweater. When I come downstairs, Evan's packing himself lunch for the day.

"Work?" I ask. "On a Saturday?"

"I want money, let me live," he says. A ghost of a smile still lives on his face. "Are you gonna tell me anything about him?"

"Who?" I say coyly.

"The pretty ginger you wandered off with last night?"

"I don't know what you're talking about. When do you have work?"

"No changing the subject!" My brother laughs. "No, but seriously, he was almost _criminally_ attractive. Carly showed me the pictures she took of you."

"It's—whatever," I remark. "You know I don't like talking about this. You're my brother, it's _awkward._ "

"I'm also your premiere supply of condoms because you forget _literally everything_ if I don't remind you first, but okay, fine then." He takes a big gulp of coffee from his checkered mug and makes an even bigger point of rolling his eyes. "I'm not going to judge you."

"I know! I just. Let me save my self-esteem here."

"Silvan, you attract the prettiest people. I really don't think your self-esteem is the issue."

"It is when you make me talk to you about it!"

"Fine, okay." He makes a big deal out of rolling his eyes. "Tell me when you're ready, I said I won't judge you."

Assuming I'll ever be ready to detail my most private affairs to my _brother_.

After Evan's gone, I fire up the stove and scramble myself some eggs. A lonely Saturday morning for me, after a not-so-solitary Friday evening. Days like these only happen sometimes, interrogation by Evan included.

After we left the party, Andore and I took a walk until the brisk evening weather had sobered me up, and then I took him toward the beach in the West of the city where you can see Satellite and the whole of the Daedalus bridge when it's clear out. After that, I followed him to his swanky hotel room downtown, and that was that. I guess his friends, or his teammates or whatever, were busy in the evening, too, because we stayed unbothered, and I never actually got to meet them.

Anonymity is what I want when I do these things, anyways. If I don't know somebody, it's easier to just slip out and away when it's all over. No strings attached. I don't know if I could ever find myself in a lasting relationship anytime soon. Maybe not ever. It's like I told Aki—I have a tough time _really_ feeling anything.

After I'm done eating, I make myself a cup of coffee and sit down to finish the rest of _The Clouds_ , one of the plays Audrey recommended to me. I don't know how long Evan's shift will be—or how long I'll be alone.

In the first hour of silence and solitude, I decide that I'm bored of sitting around and I go upstairs to change into some workout clothes. That's the only other thing to do that I can think of.

The gym I take classes at is uptown, in a sort of semi-suburban area on the edge of the business district. It takes me a little while to find parking, since I guess it's a popular idea to go work out on a Saturday morning.

Sometimes, I can't spend more than a half hour in the little room full of punching bags—sometimes it looks too much like Arcadia with its glass paneled doors and painted beige walls—but other times, it's kind of therapeutic. I take a few minutes to wrap my hands with tape, I tie back as much of my hair as will stay in a teeny ponytail at the nape of my neck, and I go to town.

I started taking kickboxing lessons two months ago. That's when the physician deemed it safe enough for me to start exercising regularly. Beforehand, my body was too fragile for it. She said it was a miracle that I hadn't already died of malnourishment while in Arcadia.

At the very least, I can eat three square meals a day now without having to worry about keeping it all down. I can count days every month in anticipation of my period, which happened for the first time ever those two months ago, and though I'm not sleeping as much as I probably should be, I do feel better. I can still see my ribs if I look at myself carefully in the mirror, but they're not pronounced. I can suddenly do a lot of things that I couldn't less than six months ago.

I don't know how much time has passed before I kick my punching bag into somebody's outstretched hand.

"Whoa there." Crow peeks out from behind the bag at me. His hair's tied back, and he's wearing gym shorts. "Fancy seeing you here."

"Hi," I say, flexing my stiff, taped up fingers. "What's up?"

"Not much. I had to get out of the house and I figured I'd go running or something. Saw you through the window. You getting out, too?"

"Yeah, Evan had work and I didn't want to be home alone." I head for my things at the back wall, not too far from where we're standing, and reach for my water bottle. "Why'd you want to be out of the house? I thought Yusei had scheduled prototype time today."

Crow blinks at me. "Oh shit, yeah, you weren't there last night."

"What do you mean?"

"After those big dudes came crashing into the party on their fucking tank, we all went down to get our duel runners to try and help out with chasing people away, and some dude showed up. He knew Yusei somehow, knew about the Ghost thing…"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," I interject. "'Some dude'?"

"Yeah. Tall as hell, wearing a visor. Called himself 'Dark Glass'. But, anyways, he challenged Yusei. Told him he had a secret solution for Yusei's whole Synchro predicament."

"That… sounds fake."

"No, yeah, I know, but the crazy thing is, he did this summoning thing that wasn't exactly a Synchro. Called it something weird—'Accel' or something. Anyways, Yusei's been pacing around over it all morning. I don't think he slept last night."

"Unsurprising."

Crow runs a hand through his hair. "Where, uh. Where did you go?"

"Oh, I…"

"Because, I, ah. I'd be lying if I said Yusei wasn't peeved about that, too."

I snort. "I'm sorry, he didn't want to talk to me last night. And I wanted to have a nice time."

Crow's face brightens a little. "Well, did you?"

"Yes."

He raises his eyebrows at me and doesn't even try to shove down his grin. "There a significant other we should know about?"

"No," I say coolly.

After a pause, he says, "Huh. You didn't strike me as a hit-it-and-quit-it type of girl."

"I don't think you're the only one I've surprised."

"Who, uh, who else is in the loop about that?"

"Evan. And Aki found out on a whim."

"Nice." He taps a playful punch against my shoulder. "Carly was showing Jack those photos she took of you and the guy. They're nice."

"I'll bet. We posed and everything. Also, what right does Yusei have to be pissed at me? He basically gave me the cold shoulder last night and wouldn't tell me why."

"He met the guy you were out with. He's, uh… he's actually pretty famous."

"Look, I don't wanna know anything about him. That's sort of the point of a one-night-stand. And Yusei can stick it, I'm allowed to have fun at a party I was invited to."

"Okay, I get it, I get it."

"I know Yusei's having a rough time. I tried talking to him. But I can only do so much, especially when he won't let me listen."

"Yeah, I know he's being tough. But, to be real?" Crow wrings his hands together. "Sure, Jack and I talk with him a lot more now, but it's not the same as it was. It's not ever going to feel or be the same, and I almost want to say that he's never going to _really_ talk to us ever again. He… he talks to you more _now_ than he ever talked to any of us. Even back then."

"I don't… know how to help him," I confess. "We're not all that similar."

"Seriously? Yeah you are."

"I'm surprised he doesn't seek out Evan more often. He and Evan were friends the longest."

"The two of you went through something together," Crow says. "Something none of the rest of us were part of. It makes sense to me that he'd feel the most comfortable with you after all of it."

I shake my head like I can shimmy out of the funnel of memories Crow's words bring back. Arcadia and Satellite and all those times we delivered each other. "So, did you come here to talk or to work out?"

"I dunno. Maybe both." He grins. "Teach me how to kickbox!"

"You already know how to fight, dumbass."

"Not formally. Come on, teach me!"

"Fine," I grunt, heaving myself back onto my feet. I set my water bottle back down next to my hoodie and fumble around for my trainer's tape. "Give me your hands."

"Sick, I get tape."

"Yeah, it keeps your hands from swelling." I curl his palms in thick strips of white gauze, and when I'm done, he flexes his fingers as if testing how stretchy the tape is. "I can trust that you know how to punch, right?"

"Oh, yeah, come on. Give me more credit here."

"Okay, okay, okay. So start with your stance," I say. I fall into my own in an attempt to provide a visual aid. "Sit back in your pelvis like this, weight on your back foot, but be ready to shift it a lot. Are you left or right-handed?"

"Right," he says, copying me.

"Okay, so then you might be orthodox. Does that feel right?"

"Yeah, I think so."

"All right. You lead with your left. Left foot, left hand. And you hold them like this."

"Like this?"

"A little lower. You keep your shoulder up just a bit more to protect your face when your fists aren't doing that for you."

"Gotcha."

"Now, your leading punch—" I extend my left fist, "—is your left jab. Watch how my arm twists in the follow-through, and be careful not to overextend it or else you'll hurt yourself."

He copies me, and together we jab the air a few times before I draw a little further away from him and demonstrate a right cross.

"Make sure you always snap back to this stance," I say. "And you can't be too rigid, or else you'll go down easier and it'll be too hard for you to move."

"Okay. Okay, I think I got it." He raises his fists up playfully in front of his face. "Show me what you've got," he says, a cheeky grin lighting up his face.

"Really? We haven't been at it for all that long, are you sure you—"

"Aw, c'mon, I can take you!"

"Okay," I retort. "You can tap out at any time."

"Ooh, she's _confident_."

I settle back into my stance, fists up, and take a couple seconds to breathe before I spring forward. To his credit, Crow's pretty good at blocking blows. The duel gang street-fighting experience definitely shows in him. But he's also easy to read, much easier than any of the traditional fighters that spar in my classes, and though he's pretty good at blocking my jabs and crosses, a fake out and a side kick sends him spinning toward the punching bag.

He makes this little surprised sound, grins, sees me stalling for him, and says, "No, keep going! Do it for real!"

I mutter an "okay" and come at him again with a couple of jabs and, eventually, a hook kick that throws him to the ground with a heavy 'thunk.'

The sound makes me flinch, and I hear myself say, "Oh my gods, Crow? Are you okay?"

He's… laughing? He lifts his head a little; his arms are spread out on the mat. "Hey, that was fuckin' cool."

I breathe out the sudden pressure in my chest and plop down onto the mat next to him.

"You're pretty good, Silvan," he says. "How long have you been at this? Two months?"

"Yeah. I practice a lot, though. And the teacher says I'm a pretty quick learner."

Crow rolls onto his stomach with a grunt. "Yeah, I'll bet." After a moment of silence, he says, "Why kickboxing?"

"Hm?"

"Why'd you pick kickboxing? As a new hobby?"

Unthinkingly, I say, "So the next person who puts their hands on me loses them."

It takes me a second to look at him after I process what I said, and I'm expecting something like surprise, but he just nods at me grimly. "Good. You deserve to do that."

Crow is as blunt as me. And his lack of surprise over who I've become in these six short months is like a breath of fresh air.

I teach him to spar a little more for maybe an hour, and when we're both standing on wobbly legs, I follow him home to the square. Before we part ways, though, I invite him over for lunch, because it's likely I'll still be alone in my apartment and because I just like talking to Crow.

I stumble into Aki, who looks like she's been knocking on my front door for a while.

"Hey, uh, what's up?" I say.

She starts and flushes pink. "Oh! I… didn't know you weren't home." She fumbles with her phone, probably to check the time. "Evan must be out, too, then?"

"Yeah. Let me put Hiraeth away, you can come with me through the back door."

We head in through the back garage door together, and Aki picks her way around me putting Hiraeth away to go toward the couch. There's a couple seconds of weird silence before she suddenly squeaks, "So! You went home with that guy from last night?"

I groan. "Is literally everybody going to ask me about that?"

"What? Everybody saw you, Silvan, and you didn't exactly pick the least-known contender—"

"I told Crow earlier, I don't want to know anything about him! It's—easier that way!"

"Oh, so Crow knows, too?"

"I mean, everybody probably knows now!" I roll my eyes. "Apparently _everybody_ saw us, right? Are you only here to try to pick at me about it?"

"No, I—I mean. Yesterday was weird, and an apology didn't really cut it…"

"Why are you here, Aki?"

"Why—didn't you trust me enough to tell me about it?"

"It's just... It's private. I didn't think anybody wanted to know. Much less that they _should_."

"Are you joking? Of course I should know if my best friend is sleeping around, I want to be sure you're safe!"

"I'm perfectly fine," I say. "Where I sleep and who it's with isn't anybody's business."

"That's not what I mean, I just— _ugh, what do I mean_?"

I tear my ponytail band out and run a hand through my hair. "Yeah, I don't know either. And I do know how to take care of myself, Aki."

"I—know."

"So what's the big deal?"

"I just." She sighs. Puts her head in her hands. Her voice comes out muffled by her fingers. "I don't get it. I want to get it, but I don't. I have so much trouble figuring out how I feel, so… so how can you do things like that so easily?"

It's my turn to sigh. "All right, I gotcha." I sink down into the couch next to her. "We aren't the same, Aki. You know that."

"Yeah, I know…"

"You and I are going to have different ways of coping. I told you, I don't… I honestly just don't _feel_ things. Not like I used to, if I ever did."

"But, still! How… how can you…"

I put my arm around her. "It's tough to explain. But I can just—I can feel wanted without having to get attached to anyone. Aki, if this is about—"

"I. I wish I could be like that. I can't stop feeling so much, and it's… It just hurts all the time. I don't know. I don't know why I'm upset. I'm sorry."

"You don't have to apologize. And, honestly, not feeling isn't as great as you're making it out to be. I'd rather feel shit any day than keep being all empty."

"I'm so… _angry_. At Divine. For doing this to us."

I rub her shoulder. "I know."

"I… I didn't tell you about it yet, because, well… we haven't _really_ talked recently. But I decided that I'm going to testify for Misty."

"...oh."

"If he's getting what's coming to him for all he did," she says, "then I want to be part of the reason why."

"...I still have to think about it," I say.

"I know." She breathes out slowly. "I just. I can't be this way forever. I refuse to. I want to get better, and it's been almost half a year, but I feel… I don't feel different. At all."

"Me neither, really," I murmur. "But we're trying. Aren't we?"

"I guess." A second passes before she says, "I wanted to ask you, um. About Yusei."

Some feeling I can't quite place tremors up my spine. "What about him?"

"I still don't know how I feel. If… if whatever I'm feeling, that is, if it's real. I get these feelings all the time, every time somebody gives me attention or—or takes an interest in me, but I don't know. Maybe it's a side-effect of feeling too much, but I'm kind of scared."

"I could have sworn you hated him three months ago."

"I mean. Yes? I don't know. I hated him because he took me out of my comfort zone. He acted like—well, like he knew us. Psychics. Just because he knew Evan, and… and because he acted like he knew you, too… I don't know. When I think about it now, it's all jumbled up. But when I look at him, I just… don't know." she slides down a little on the couch. "I feel all _light_ inside. And I don't know what it means. If I like _him_ , or if I like what he _did…_ "

"I don't think I follow what question you're trying to ask," I confess.

"I—I want to learn to ride a duel runner," she blurts.

"...uh. Are we… still talking about Yusei?"

"I mean, he's not the only reason I want to learn," Aki says. "Yesterday, when we were looking for him on the highway, after we found him, one thing just led to another, and I had to ride with him in a turbo duel."

"Okay…"

"My point is, it was different than a standing duel. Different than watching a turbo duel. Different than I imagined, I mean. A _good_ different. And I do want to learn because of that, but I also… I want to learn to… to…"

"To try to get in his head," I say slowly.

"Maybe? I mean, maybe if I can learn to ride and learn that way that turbo duelists think, maybe I can… I don't know. Figure myself out. Figure out if these feelings are real, if there's _something_ grounding them."

"I guess it'll be another thing for you guys to talk about. And, I guess I could probably try to pick his brain for you." At the look of alarm on her face, I add, "Subtly!"

"I don't know about that yet! I'd just, um… like to take it a step at a time. All of you ride, and it's like… I don't know, you all sort of understand each other more than I can. Even you and I share so much, but I can't get near you on that level. If I can understand you all as a turbo duelist, too, maybe I can figure myself out. I can figure _him_ out, and if this is really something or if I'm just projecting..."

"Right," I say. "That's perfectly all right. Actually, you know what? You should ask him to teach you!"

"Wh-What? I mean, I was going to ask _you_ to do that—"

"Well, sure, I could _help_ , but if you try to learn from him, you'll spend more time together. He's a much better rider than me, anyways. And I'm sure he'd be happy to help you."

"Uh, maybe?"

"Yeah, you could go see if he's home. Start right away. I mean, you'll need a duel runner, and probably some better riding clothes…"

"And—and you think he'd be happy to help?"

"Of course. He's been touchy as of late, but he doesn't bite. And being your teacher will probably be a welcome change of pace."

"Oh. Yeah," she mutters.

I pull her to her feet. "Come on. Go for it. I'd, uh, go with you, but Crow told me he's a little peeved about Andore."

Aki's cheeks flush pink. "What. What was it even like?"

I sputter with laughter. "Do you want a demonstration?"

Her shoulders seize and the color in her cheeks darkens. "O-Okay! Okay, I'm going!"

I'm still laughing as she breezes for the front door, outside, and straight past Crow, who looks like he was just about to knock.

Crow pokes his head in the door. "Why did, uh, Aki look as red as her hair?"

"Innuendos," I say. "I have all sorts of stuff I could make, and also leftovers. Come help me decide."

Crow scoffs a little and makes his way down toward me. "What, she faint-hearted?"

"Who, Aki? Probably just a little sheltered. Senator dad, homemaker mom, you know?"

"No sex ed in Arcadia?"

"Just abstinence 'til you die, my friend."

"So you're the outlier?"

"I just read a lot," I say, grinning.

He shakes his head. "I'm surprised a girl that looks like her hasn't had more partners."

"Any," I clarify. "She hasn't had any."

Crow's jaw drops. "You're joking!"

"Your queue of people-who-want-to-date-you shortens if you're known for your supernatural powers, pal."

"People are fucking stupid."

I smile at him. "Why don't _you_ ask her out, then?"

He chuckles. "Your queue of people-who-want-to-date-you shortens if you're marked as a criminal, _pal_."

"All right, fair enough, fair enough."

After a second, he says, the smile gone from his voice, "Besides, a girl like Aki probably wouldn't look my way if I were the last person on Earth."

"Oh, come on."

"Nah. If I could be self-deprecating for two seconds, I'm never anybody's first choice."

"Well," I say thinly, "people are fucking stupid."

That brings a hint of a smile back to his face. I go digging into the fridge to look for something for us to eat, all the while imagining what it would be like if I could successfully play matchmaker for _any_ of my friends.


	37. Sweet Words and Fevers

A couple weeks pass, and I keep tabs on Aki as she slowly but surely learns to be a rider.

I help when I can, but I've been distant from Yusei recently—and on purpose. We haven't talked about that evening at the party. I'm still a little pissed that he thinks he has the right to judge me on what happened between me and Andore. It's not like I'm ever actually going to see him again. The WRGP's so big, the chance of our teams getting bracketed together is pretty slim—something like 1 in 100.

I think Aki's having a pretty good time, though. Whenever we talk, she gets excited and babbles on about the things she's learned. She had me help her pick out some riding gear. A few times, we've table-played a pretend turbo duel as a practice for her license test. Pretty soon, now, she'll have to pass a riding test by winning a turbo duel with an authorized Bureau agent.

It's a pleasant sort of difference I'm seeing in her. She used to be so afraid of riding—afraid of falling and getting hurt, that is, and though she still has a pretty intense aversion to pain, I think she's doing okay with it. So far she sounds like she's taken all of the precautions she can to keep herself safe.

When I'm not helping Aki out, I'm still trapped in my daily norms: work, kickboxing, therapy. Repeat ad infinitum. To be honest, my life's been pretty normal and boring as of late. _Oddly_ so. I actually kind of hate it; there's nothing to keep my mind off of the Divine thing. I've been thinking about it even more ever since Aki told me she decided to testify.

I take a later shift in the stacks on a Thursday — it's the only quiet that's good for me. I never have to think when doing this job, I've already memorized the system and read most of the books I'm re-filing. It's cool and underground and the lights are low and it smells like old pages. Nobody bothers me here unless they need a book. And, even for that, rarely anyone does. Most of the patrons stay upstairs, in the warm lamplight and at the long community work tables.

So, I'm somewhere in the very back of the filing lines, reshelving crumbling hundred-year old tomes of Shakespeare, and I flinch when I hear somebody clear their throat. I fumble with the copy of _Two Gentlemen of Verona_ I was about to reshelve and search for the sound — and I find a familiar pair of blue eyes peering at me through the empty space on the other side of the shelf.

"Can we talk?" Yusei says flatly.

He's cornering me at work? Instead of coming to my house to talk to me like a normal human being?

I turn up my nose at him and reshelve _The Tempest_ and _Two Gentlemen of Verona_ right where his face is.

I hear him puff a sigh. His voice comes through from somewhere lower on the shelf. "Please?"

I reshelve _The Winter's Tale_ and _Venus and Adonis_ , down where his voice is coming from, and I shove my cart of books back down the aisle so I can get to a different section.

"Silvan, can we please be adults about this?"

"I'm sorry, you want to be an adult _now_?" I retort. "Two weeks after you threw a hissy fit over something that doesn't concern you?"

"I did _not_."

"That's not what I heard!"

"Listen, please." He intercepts me at the end of the stack and sticks out his foot to keep me from pushing the cart past him. "You're right, it's not my business. But, if it _was_ —"

"Oh my gods."

"— I'd be upset because it's the _competition_."

"It was also _just_ _a fling_ ," I emphasize. "I didn't give so much as a last name. Not even a phone number. I left before the sun was up. We know literally nothing about each other. I'm not an amateur."

His face flushes. "Okay fine. _Fine._ "

"Can you move, please? I'm on the clock."

"Give me a break, it takes you twenty minutes to empty these things." He knocks against the front of the cart with the toe of his boot. "You can stand still for a couple seconds."

"I don't know what your problem is," I say. "This is your damage. Not mine. _You_ ghosted _me._ "

"I didn't 'ghost' you."

"Well you sure have been ignoring me ever since the party! What do you call _that_?"

"I've — been busy!"

"Busy! Amazing! So has everyone else, and yet I seem to see Crow and Jack and Aki pretty much _daily_ —"

"Look, can you not crucify me for having a hard time? It was tough enough to make myself come down here to talk to you as is!"

"Well, I'm sorry I'm so unapproachable!"

"That's not what I meant!"

"Then what _did_ you mean?"

"I just—ugh!" He puts his forehead against a bookshelf, hard enough that his head makes a sound on the wood. "Sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Does that help at all?"

I cross my arms. "It'd help if I knew what you were sorry for."

"For—ugh, I don't know. Everything you're mad at me for?"

"Okay, wow. Well, let's forget for a second that what I do in my free time isn't your business. Apparently, you literally don't talk about your feelings to anybody except me. Which is, uh. _Dumb_. You know Crow and Jack have been worried about you, right? That they're scared to poke and prod because they don't know if you'll respond? And I certainly can't help you if you ignore me for who knows how long, especially if I'm apparently the only one you let help you nowadays."

"I… know…"

"Okay, so if you know, take a step to remedy it, maybe? Hopefully? You can't keep doing this to yourself."

"I _know_."

"So act like it. Geez."

He rolls his eyes. "You're not even going to pretend to be nice to me?"

"You ignored me for two weeks, I get to be as mean as I want," I retort. "Now move a little so I can put these books back."

He exhales and steps to the side. I push the cart past him, and I can feel him following behind me. "What do you suggest I do?"

"I don't know. Tell me what's wrong, maybe. According to Aki, _after_ you came out of the soda truck you were locked in, which by the way you also haven't told me anything about, some lady showed up and something happened? And when you were off moping at the party, somebody tracked you down and fed you some new dueling technique? I've heard none of this from you, and it was all two weeks ago, so I literally don't know anything beyond the vaguest bullshit possible."

"Shit, I forgot about that." He claps a hand over his eyes. "Yeah, I went on a work call, nobody was home, but someone hit me over the head and I woke up in a truck. I literally got kidnapped because someone wanted me to play on their WRGP team, Silvan."

" _Wonderful_."

"The lady's name was Sherry—Sherry LeBlanc—"

"That's a mouthful."

"—and she wanted me on her team, too, but she wanted to ask for it the old fashioned way."

"Right, by playing cards while pushing eighty miles per hour," I retort. "You already registered with our team. You can't play for anyone else."

"Tell _them_ that," he says. "At the party, I got corned by this guy in a visor, calling himself Dark Glass, who said he could help me with my Synchros."

"You're still on that," I say. It's not a question.

"Do you expect me to just forget about it?" His voice lowers sharply as he continues, "I'm afraid, Silvan. That's not something I can get over in a couple of weeks."

"It was a one-time thing, Yusei."

"If somebody showed up and was deliberately trying to fix it," he says, "it's not a one-time thing." He grabs my arm, and I flinch. When I stop to look back at him, the look on his face knocks me breathless.

"Something is coming, Silvan," he says. "Something is coming and I'm afraid I won't be able to stop it."

"Listen," I tell him, softening my tone, "you need to let me help you. You need to let _us_ help you. Last time, we weren't a team. We are now. We know each other better. And you won't get anywhere if you try to take it all on by yourself."

"I-I know, but… last time, I was the one to take it on. I was the only one left."

"Hey, but you can't take on all of that responsibility by yourself." I reach to squeeze his shoulder. "Not when nothing has happened yet. You can't just let yourself lose sleep over this. You _know_ how bad that is. I won't let you do this to yourself. I need you to trust all of us, let us help you however we can."

"Okay," he whispers. "I'm sorry about… sorry about the last couple of weeks."

"It's all right," I tell him. "I don't like arguing with you."

"Yeah, me neither." He cuts his eyes away from me. "How much longer are you on the clock for?"

"I don't know. Hour, maybe?"

"When you're done, do you feel like helping me with a project?"

"What project?" I say.

"I'm building Aki a duel runner."

Pleasant surprise jolts up through me. "Really?"

"Yeah, she's — you know about that, right? She's training for her license test."

Hm. Aki must not have mentioned that I suggested he teach her. "No, yeah. It's tomorrow, isn't it? I've been practicing a few things with her, too."

"She's getting pretty good. I've been teaching her all I can, I even took her skating to try to get her balance to be better, if you can believe it."

" _Skating_ , really?" A secret sort of smile fights its way onto my face. That almost sounds like a date, but… am I in the position to ask him about it?

"Yeah, and Crow and Jack have been helping me out building. It's been a nice break from coding."

"I'll bet. But no, yeah, I'd love to help out." I push my cart further through the stacks. "Wanna help me put these back? I'll teach you Dewey decimals."

"Sounds boring. I'm in."

For the last hour-ish of my shift, we empty my cart together, our conversation having shifted to more meaningless things, like me teaching him the library's shelving system. I didn't realize until now how much I'd missed being around him. I missed his face and his voice and how good and natural it feels to be standing next to him.

When my shift is done I tell Nina, the head librarian, that I'm heading home, and Yusei and I walk outside toward the parking lot together, close enough that our shoulders scrape together.

"What are you thinking?" He asks absently.

"I just… missed you, is all," I admit, bumping against him. "I don't like fighting."

"I—missed you, too," he says. He sounds a little surprised, but warmth has crept into his expression. "I think not talking to you is kinda bad for me."

"Me too."

"I know I need to try to open back up to Jack and to Crow but… I don't know. Usually it's just easier to talk to you."

"It's okay to take it a step at a time," I tell him. "They're being patient. They don't want to overstep their bounds."

He shrugs.

Together, we head back toward home. It's getting later, but somehow we end up making it back without having to brave too much traffic. Yusei's bright red duel runner is easy to follow through all of the sidestreets and shortcuts we've both memorized.

I think Evan must have a closing shift at the convenience store, because the apartment is empty when I get back in to put Hiraeth away. It does give me more of an excuse to leave right away, though — to head from my quiet, empty apartment to Yusei's (likely) populated one.

Sure enough, when I knock on the door, Crow answers and wrangles a muscular arm around my shoulder to lead me down into the living area. "Look everyone! My exercise buddy's here!"

"Exercise buddy?" Jack, who's over by the stove, shouts, "We gonna go jogging together, too, Silvan?"

"When you someday _decide_ to go jogging," I retort.

"Okay, okay, no squabbling." Yusei waves from over by the duel runners. "We have to have this finished before tomorrow morning."

"Ah, we know," Crow says. "We can have fun while we work, though, right? Maybe? I don't really have the attention span to be all silent."

"It's not like we have to suspend all conversation to work," I say, shucking off my jacket. "How much more do we have to do?"

Yusei yanks a sheet off of a fourth duel runner—it has a full shape to it, which is good. It probably just needs some internal work and some paint on it.

"How long have you been building this?" I ask.

"A week, maybe. On and off." Yusei shrugs. "I've been doing a little bit every day in between work."

"Still taking a break from the prototype?"

"Yes," he says flatly. "Every time I think about it my brain starts to hurt."

"I'll look at it again, maybe," I say. "So, where are we with this?"

"I still have to write more of the programming," Yusei tells me. "Mostly just duel protocols, though."

"I have a couple more things I have to put onto the engine," Crow adds. "I've been doing a bunch of the building."

"I've just been handing people tools so far," Jack calls from over by the stove. "I think I get to help paint, though."

"That's cool, you guys are all helping out." I kneel down next to the runner, where the side gapes open at me. I can see the engine, sort of in pieces, in to the left.

"Well, yeah!" Crow says. "We need another riding lady on our team, I think."

I shrug. "I can't get all the attention, I guess."

"Yeah, widen the dating pool a little."

"I didn't know Aki was your type, Crow," Jack retorts.

"Hey, she's a pretty girl and she has ambition. What's not to like?"

I shrug, but I almost don't think anyone can see me. "I'd date her."

"She not into women?" Jack asks.

"No, that's not the issue, we just… ahh, I think after what we've been through, it'd be tough for us to have a relationship like that. We both have different ways of coping." I sigh through my nose. "Also, I'm not sure I'm _her_ type."

" _She_ has a _type_?"

"I, uh, don't know what exactly it is. But I don't think I'm it."

"Dumb," Crow retorts. "You're definitely everyone's type."

I smile to myself, thinking of the conversations we've had as of late. "Are you flirting with me, Hogan?"

"Do ya want me to say yes?"

"It's no fun if I tell you to!"

"What's _your_ type, Silvan?" Jack asks. I can hear the smile in his voice.

"People who are nice to me," I say, in an effort to dodge the question. "And have good bone structure."

"So we're all in the running, then, hm?"

"Not you," I scoff. "Carly's _way_ better than I could ever be. And if you don't keep her, I _will_ make a move of my own."

"That's fair."

Crow kneels down next to me and starts handing me tools. It doesn't take me very long to figure out what we have left to solder on, and with the both of us working, it'll be easier to finish up.

It gets later and later, smatterings of meaningless conversation breaking the silence of our work, and as Crow and I finish up, we take a break to let Jack do the painting. When Yusei is done with the code, we all just sort of sit there and watch the paint cure.

"Are we gonna name it?" I ask.

"I had some ideas," Yusei says. "I was thinking we could put it to a vote."

After a pause, I say, "Can I put some roses on the back? Like over the bumper?"

"When the rest is dry, sure. I think she'd like that."

"How long ago did you teach yourself to do artsy-fartsy shit, Silvan?" Crow asks.

"When I was fourteen, I think," I tell him. "I went through this–– _phase_ , where I was really into art history and stuff. I'd doodle on everything. This, actually, this was..." I turn out my bare shoulder toward him, the one with the roses tattooed across it, "...I drew this."

"Really? That's super cool."

"Thanks. I guess Aki and I must both have a thing for roses. Or I'm just good at drawing flowers."

"Or maybe both."

It's a little boring, waiting around, delving into little moments of small talk, but at least I'm not alone. I'd trade boredom for loneliness any day.

The four of us end up on the floor at some point, staring at the ceiling and waiting for the room to stop smelling like wet paint. Crow makes something for us to eat, but I'm not hungry so I stay comfortably where I am, drifting around in my own thoughts. Eventually Jack and Crow wander off to go to bed, so it's just me and Yusei lying next to each other on the floor, shoulders pressed together. An hour ago, I painted roses on the duel runner's back bumper with whorling strokes of iridescent violet paint, so as soon as that dries, the duel runner will be done.

"I'm stuck in between Frenzy and Blooming Racer," Yusei is saying.

"I liked Frenzy, too," I tell him. "But I also kind of like Bloody Kiss."

"That's the one Jack and Crow voted for. Maybe we'll go with that one."

"Hm."

There's a pause. There hasn't been any real conversation between us since we left the library. But I feel like there's something he's trying to work up to.

"Tell me what you're not saying," I say.

A long moment of silence.

"Vizor guy," Yusei says, "Dark Glass, or whatever. We went out onto the track below the convention center and just… had it out, I guess. But he could do this sort of summoning that wasn't a Synchro. It was like — like some different, new-age Fusion Summon."

"Okay," I say softly.

"If — If I can manage to do it, maybe it'll solve my problem," he continues. "Maybe I can get some sleep."

"Just let me know if I can help you."

"I think it has to do with speed." He frowns. "Which just makes me angrier about the damn prototype. It could be part of the solution. Can't get it working, can't use my cards…"

I reach for him, resting my hand as lightly as I can over his heart like I'm keeping him from bolting upward. It's quite a reach like this, lying beside him on the floor. "You'll figure it out. We'll all help you. We'll debug the program, and we'll debug it in time for the tournament. You'll fix your cards. I promise."

"I hope so."

There's silence again, and I stare at the ceiling and the shadows the rafters cast. If I listen hard enough, I can hear Jack snoring faintly upstairs.

"So… when you do that stuff," Yusei says at last, his voice dark and low, "is it just to do it? Do you… do you feel anything?"

The emphasis on _that stuff_.

"What, like. Like love?" I tilt my head toward him a little.

"I… I guess."

"...can I tell you something kind of sad?"

"Hm."

"I really don't think it exists. Love."

He shifts, but says nothing.

"Like… I don't think a world like the one we're in is capable of sustaining something like that."

"You don't think so?" His voice has grown soft. "With all of the bad things, there has to be some capacity for beauty."

"I don't think beauty has anything to do with it," I say. "I've been able to find beauty in all sorts of things since I got out. I'm talking about love, about — about the capacity to need someone and have them need you…"

"I think it's real."

"I just — the only person I wanted to love me for the entirety of the life I can remember never loved me back. Screaming and neglect and torture isn't love, but… but as much as I hid from him and wanted to escape, I wanted his attention. I wanted to be loved, but it wasn't… that wasn't…"

"That's not love, then," he says. "Never feeling love and it not being real aren't remotely the same thing."

"I don't know. I don't know what it is, so… so maybe it's just not real for me."

"You got dealt a bad hand —"

"Bad hand or not… I just don't believe in it. So, no, I don't do that stuff for it. I do that stuff because I never really know how to feel, ever. If I even can. I want to be wanted without having to worry about the emotions part. You know?"

"Maybe." He sighs through his nose.

"You defend it like you've been in love before," I say.

"I dunno. You don't love your friends?"

"That's — different. Your friends are different than the kind of love I'm talking about. Not that it's less powerful, or whatever, just… it's not the same idea."

"Okay," he emphasizes.

"I don't love Andore," I say. "I didn't _love_ any of them, not the emotional way. That's the point. You don't have to love somebody to get close to them like that."

"No, I never said that. I just want to understand, it's… something I can't wrap my head around." He laughs a little as he says, "I can't really imagine myself doing anything like that. Not without knowing a person for… I don't know, a while beforehand."

"It's not everyone's cup of tea," I say. "But it is mine. And I really don't… no one's known about it until now, save for Evan."

"You don't have to be embarrassed about it —"

"I know, I don't, but I am. It's embarrassing when my friends nitpick at me about it."

"I didn't nitpick at you."

"You ignored me for two weeks."

"Look, I… I told you, he's the competition."

"You know that's a low key _stupid_ reason to be mad, right?"

"No, it never occurred to me, _actually_." After a moment of hard silence, he sighs through his nose. "But I am sorry."

I sigh, too. "Just a couple of sorry kids."

"...I guess so."

I don't know when I doze off, but it's sometime after that, and my head sticks in to Yusei's shoulder. _Just a couple of sorry kids_ keeps ringing in my ears. That's just what we are. Too similar to be apart, but too different to get any closer. I think about what Aki said about not knowing whether she liked him or the things he did. I can't help but wonder where _I_ stand in relation to him. At least in that respect.

In the morning, I'm the first one up, and I leave Yusei sprawled on the floor next to the duel runner while I fire up the coffee machine. I run my fingertips over Aki's new duel runner, testing the smooth, cured paint, and I breathe in the smell of the brewing coffee coming from the stove.

Crow's the first one to come down from the loft. He yawns noisily before saying, "You stay over? Where'd you sleep?"

"Just on the floor, there's plenty of space."

"We have a couch, Silvan," he says blandly.

"The floor was closer."

Crow rolls his eyes and goes to pour himself some coffee.

Jack's the next one to haul himself down, and Crow and I stand with him in the kitchen, waking up slowly.

"I mean, I knew the two of you barely slept," Jack is saying, "but on the _floor_?"

"I dunno," I say. "It was close and it was comfortable. I've slept in stranger places."

Jack raises his mug very briefly at me, as if offering a toast before he takes a drink.

"What time's the test again?" I ask.

"Ten. We still have a while. And Aki is meeting us here, anyways."

"What has she been practicing on?"

"That." Crow gestures to the finished runner. "It's been pretty much a skeleton, though. No balancers or duel protocols or anything remotely exciting. Yusei was working on it all through when she was training. Plus, they have classes at Duel Academia so I think she rode on some of their issued runners, too."

"I'm glad she had more time to learn than I did," I say. "Two weeks kicks my two days' ass."

"You did the most with what you had." Jack shrugs. "Plus, that's impressive. Two days? I think the three of us—" he gestures around the room, "—took turns learning over something like three weeks. Your muscle memory's insane."

" _Memory_ ," I mutter. "I guess. Some things, I retain better than others."

Crow frowns. "How is that going?"

"What?"

"Evan said you were seeing a special therapist for psychic stuff. No updates on your memory?"

"Only once every few months, but yeah. I'm still a blank slate, for the most part," I sigh. "Nothing but flashes. Feelings. And I don't know why." I plaster on a fake smile. "I can recite somewhere near three hundred digits of pi, though."

"So, what? Trade your childhood for being a fucking genius?"

"I guess so. But it makes most everything feel like it's come straight out of a fever dream."

"Any hope of getting any of it back?"

I shake my head. "I don't know. I'm… I'm still trying to figure out if I _want_ it back."

That sort of makes the conversation between us fizzle out. The elephant in the room becomes, " _but Silvan, why wouldn't you want half your brain back?_ " Well, going back means I have to remember more of Divine. More of what I've blocked out. And I would rather make new memories than obsessing over where the old ones went.

At least, for now.

Some amount of time later, there's a knock on the door. Crow rouses Yusei off of the floor, and I go to get the door for Aki — she's standing outside, her posture drooping, and underneath a big warm jacket she's wearing a red and black leather riding suit. She looks nervous, but she smiles wide when she sees me.

Crow spots her from down below the stairwell and grins, hands on his hips. "I like the new digs!"

She beams. "Thank you!"

Yusei's still rubbing sleep from his eyes, but he holds out a hand toward the duel runner. "For you."

Her eyes go wide. " _Th-Thank you_!"

"We'll be there, too, watching and sending you good vibes," I say. "And afterward maybe we can all take a drive together."

She blinks. "But… what if I —"

"Shh! You're not allowed to doubt yourself!"

We all gather ourselves together, and about fifteen minutes later we make our way to the Duel Academia track. Aki rides in between me and Crow the whole time, and when I risk turning my head to check on her, I can see the wheels turning in her head; I can see her thinking about staying upright.

At the track, we meet the twins and my brother, who's wearing a dark hoodie over his blue and yellow polo shirt (the convenience store's 'uniform'). He must have just come from work.

Together, we stand at the railing in the very first row of the bleachers, and Evan slings an arm around my shoulder as a greeting.

"She's really nervous," I tell him.

"She has no reason to be. I saw her and Yusei on the track last week, she's not half bad."

Aki's positioned herself at the starting strip when a Sector Security-issued duel runner pulls up. It's — Ushio who's administering the test.

"I didn't know Ushio was a turbo duelist," I muse.

"He used to chase after me when I was first testing out my duel runner," Yusei says. "I've lost count of how many times I used to outrun him."

The countdown clock dials down from three. Ushio surges forward, but Aki's just a second faster than him. She hits the corner of the circuit first and is allowed to draw for the first turn.

"I summon Revival Rose in Defense Position! Then I end my turn!"

Ushio draws. "I summon Stygian Street Patrol in Attack Position! Go on, attack Revival Rose!" Since Revival Rose is in Defense Position, Aki doesn't take any damage from its destruction, but Ushio activates his monster's special effect. "Due to Stygian Street Patrol's Effect, I can deal you damage depending on the level of your destroyed monster times a hundred!"

Revival Rose is LV 4, I think, which means that Aki takes 400 points of damage. Her

Life Points fall to 3600, Ushio places a facedown, and then he ends his turn.

It's Aki's turn. "I summon Twilight Rose Knight in Attack Position! Due to its special effect, I can Special Summon Lord Poison from my hand in Attack Position!"

She tunes them together to bring out Black Rose Dragon. Seeing it here, for real, this close again, makes distant memories surge upward in me. I remember two weeks ago, seeing it in physical form at the WRGP party… how different even that was.

After the damage calculates and Stygian Street Patrol has been destroyed, Ushio's Life Points drop to 3200. He flips his facedown.

"I activate Final Penalty! This allows me to destroy a monster that destroyed a card on my field, as well as deal half of Stygian Street Patrol's Life to you as damage!"

Black Rose Dragon shatters, and Aki takes the 800 point reduction, leaving her at 2800. "I activate the effect of Revival Rose from my Grave—when a monster on my field is destroyed, I can bring it back to my field in Defense Position!"

Revival Rose returns, cloaked in Defensive blue. Then Aki sets down two cards and ends her turn. They're on their fourth lap, and their Speed Counters have risen to 3.

"This is fast," I murmur.

"And she's _good_ ," Yusei adds.

Ushio's turn. "I activate the effect of Stygian Street Patrol from my Graveyard! I can remove it from play to Special Summon a Fiend-type monster from my hand that has an ATK lower than 2000—I'm bringing back another Stygian Street Patrol!"

It's an odd looking monster on a motorbike, wearing a helmet trimmed with Viking horns.

"Yusei, you notice?" Crow, to my right, asks. "New monsters."

"He can change his deck all he likes," Yusei muses. "He duels the same as he always has."

"Next, I summon Stygian Security!"

"That's a tuner," Yusei mutters, half to himself.

"I tune Stygian Street Patrol with Stygian Security in order to Synchro Summon Stygian Sergeants!"

The green envelope of light bursts away to reveal a twisted looking thing on a bike, pointed reptilian wings spreading out of its back. I haven't read up on Stygian monsters — they must be Bureau-issued — but I'm going to predict that its ATK is somewhere over 2000. Revival Rose only has 1300 DEF points, which will make it an easy target. I wonder what Aki's facedowns are packing.

"Stygian Sergeants, destroy Revival Rose!" Revival Rose shatters, and Ushio triggers his card's effect. "When my monster destroys another monster, I can give it a boost of 800 ATK and send it to attack again!"

That's… got to be pretty high. Aki flips a card over. "I activate my facedown, Offensive Guard! This card allows me to temporarily halve the attack of Stygian Sergeants as well as draw a card from my deck!"

Her Life Points plummet to 1300. Taking half the damage is definitely better than taking all of it.

"Next, I activate the Speed Spell - Speed Demon! This allows me to inflict 1000 points of damage on you, and come my next turn, I can tribute three of my Speed Counters to add the Speed Spell - Speed Storm to my hand! Then, I set one card face down and end my turn!"

Their Speed Counters jump up to four. Aki draws; the silence for a moment tells me that she's thinking. Not about the drive, though. About the _duel_. "I summon Witch of the Black Rose! Due to its special effect, I must draw a card! If the card isn't a monster card, I have to discard it and destroy Witch of the Black Rose!" She pulls a card from the top of her deck, then shows it. "Because I drew Dark Verger, I get to keep both!"

"I activate my facedown!" Ushio reveals his Trap. "Climactic Barricade! Because you Normal Summoned a monster, all monsters LV 4 or below can't attack! Even more, at the end of your turn, you'll take 500 points in damage for every LV 4 or below monster that's on your field!"

"I play the Speed Spell - Summon Speeder! If I have 4 or more Speed Counters, I can summon a LV 4 or below monster from my hand to the field! I summon Dark Verger!"

"Does she have any other Synchros?" Jack asks.

"A few," I say. "But I haven't seen them in a long time."

"Now, I tune Dark Verger with Witch of the Black Rose in order to Synchro Summon Splendid Rose!"

That's definitely a card I haven't seen in a long, _long_ time. And I've never seen it in battle, just flipping through her deck. Divine always had her endgame be Black Rose Dragon and nothing else.

"By activating Splendid Rose's Special Effect, I can halve the ATK of your Stygian Sergeants and take it out!"

Ushio's Life Points drop to 2100. They round the turn farthest away from us, where an odd and out-of-place stack of metal pipes suddenly explodes in a cloud of smoke. Pipes outward toward the track. I can feel the vibration from the detonation under my boots, and as I peer closer at the smoke to check if Aki and Ushio are all right, I spot a trio of guys on the other end of the bleachers fighting over something that looks a lot like a detonator.

"You have to be fucking joking," I say.

Yusei, instinctively, grabs my arm. "What just happened?"

I stab my index finger in their direction. "I think _they_ did that. Who the fuck are they?"

Yusei's expression changes from curious to concerned.

" _Hello_!" Evan shouts. "Look at the track, you guys!"

I turn and look back towards the track, where Aki's made it past the pipes and flipped a trap: Blossom Bombardment. When a monster is destroyed in battle, the opponent is dealt the attacking monster's ATK in damage.

Ushio loses his remaining life points to Splendid Rose's 2200 ATK, and Aki finishes her lap around the track before skidding to a stop in front of the bleachers. She yanks her helmet off and starts to jump up and down, almost catatonic.

Yusei and Crow go tearing down the aisle toward her begin to rush over to her, but my first immediate thought is to beeline for the creeps on the other side of the bleachers. They're still fighting over the controller when I Waste one of them into the air.

"H-Hey! What the fuck! Wh-What are you?!"

"Who the fuck do you think you are, pulling something like that?" I say. "You could've hurt someone! And for _what_?!"

"Silvan! Hey!" Jack plants a hand on my shoulder. "Put him down."

"Are you stupid?"

"Just put him down!"

I let him drop, rather than actually placing him back down (mostly because it takes less effort). I would have thrown him, I think, had it not been for the venom in Jack's voice. He wrestles one of the others into a headlock and elbows the other so hard that he goes flying backward into another row of bleachers.

"You hurt _any_ of my friends," Jack says to the third one, jabbing a finger in my direction, "and I won't stop her next time. Then, if there's anything left when she's done with you, I'll be sure to fix that."

The third one yanks his friend back over the bleacher Jack threw him over, and Jack practically throws the one under his arm toward the other two. They escape down the stairs, and as they go, I Waste the detonator out of one of their hands and in our direction.

"Why'd you do that?" I say bitterly, toying with the detonator box. "I could've taken them."

"I know. But I wanted to scare 'em, not break 'em. Plus, you bleed when you do that floaty thing for too long." he grins. "And I wanted to help, too."

I breathe out hard through my nose. "Next time something like that happens, I get to do more than _floaty things_."

"I gotcha, I gotcha. I won't stop you again."

I stare at the detonator between my fingers, and I dig deep. This is the first time I've done this on my own since the Dark Signers — the box bursts into flames, and I keep it, suspended, burning between my hands, until it's nothing but charred, melted metal.

Jack exhales. "Nice. When'd you get fire?"

"A while ago," I tell him. "I have a lot in me. I just never Expel."

"Right, right." He slings an arm around my shoulder. "Let's go join the congratulations."

I walk down onto the track with him, feeling like I'm still vibrating from using my powers, but I see the joy on Aki's face and it fades away.

She throws her arms around Yusei, and I feel a twinge of something unrecognizable.


	38. The Windowsill

Dr. Blythe is oddly patient with me—it's how I know she's had more than just me and Aki seek her out from her ad in Domino Daily.

"Focus on your breathing," she's saying. Her voice is soothing, like a mother's. She reminds me of Martha, actually. They have that same kindness in their dark, gentle faces. "Just a few more seconds. Almost done."

She's a Twister, like Aki. I'd never seen a Twister work before Dr. Blythe, though—Divine only ever had Aki Physicalize—and it's one of the most fascinating things I've ever seen. I saw her turn a plastic ficus into a tall, twisty claw of aluminum. Turning one thing into something else… it's a gift I sometimes wish I had.

"All done." She removes the cool metal clamp from my forearm and starts to her computer at the little desk near the door. "You can put your stabilizer back on."

I clip it back onto my arm as quickly as I can. I rarely take it off nowadays. Just when I shower. I've grown accustomed to wearing it even when I lie down, just in case the night terrors make me do something I'll regret.

"Your power concentration looks okay," she's saying as she cycles through the analysis. I set my eyes on the clamp: a nifty little thing she invented by herself to register levels of energy. A psychic, a successful woman, with a knack for making things. Just the idea of her makes my chest feel warm. "Have you used anything in the last month?"

"I've… Wasted a few times," I say. "I Expelled a couple days ago."

"Really? Did you have any problems?"

"No. I was okay, for the most part. I had a little bit of a headache afterward, though."

"It could be because you haven't used it in a while." She squints at the screen a little. "Your base energy has stayed the same. No change in static."

I swallow. "Okay."

Evan came with me to the first appointment I ever had here. I sat there like a little statue while he explained all that had happened to me—too frozen to speak for myself, trying to be stoic for fear that I would lose my cool otherwise in thinking about the live wire I am. Now, every time I see Dr. Blythe, every couple months or so, she tests to see if it's changed. If all I've Internalized will leave me someday, or if it'll be there until I'm brave enough to push it out.

"How are you feeling? Have you changed any medications in the last month?"

"Not that I regularly take. Still the same old-same old stuff for panic attacks."

"Have you used them at all this month?"

"Ah… I had a couple episodes, but I was due for a refill, so I didn't have anything to take."

Her brows crease. "Oh, I'm sorry."

"Oh, don't be! It isn't your fault." I shift. "Actually… Can I ask your advice about something? Something not medical related?"

She swivels around in her chair. "Of course, honey."

Gods, she's so nice. She reminds me of Seria a lot of the time. A psychic trying to do good for her people out of the kindness of her own heart.

I've been thinking about Seria a lot lately. Wondering where she is and how she's doing. Wondering if I'll ever really see her again. Supposedly she gave the Bureau access to Arcadia and all of Divine's files, then pretty much vanished off the face of the earth.

I wring my hands. "If… if you could help somebody get punished for something they did, get put in jail or something… but you had to go and tell a bunch of people what happened, people you don't know, and all of it is really personal and scary, would you still do it? Even though you might not love the outcome?"

Her acrylic nails clatter against her desk as she taps her fingers on the wood; a familiar sound, a tic I've noticed that she has when she considers something. "What would I have to lose?"

"Uh. What?"

"If I chose to speak up, what would I have to lose? If I kept quiet, what would I lose?"

"I… I don't know."

"Well, if I didn't have anything big to lose, I would do it."

I shift quietly on the examination table.

"All right," she sighs, standing. She reaches for a stopwatch on top of the stack of files by her elbow. "Have you practiced any since we met last?"

"Once or twice."

"All right. One twelve is what you have to beat. Ready?"

"Ready."

"Go."

I shut myself off. I imagine that I'm smaller and smaller and more invisible than I've ever been, and suddenly it's like my body's disappeared. I'm underwater and looking through someone else's eyes, watching my doctor look at her stopwatch and my hands as they clamp around the edge of the examination table.

I asked for this, as soon as I was well enough to try it again. As soon as the pediatrician cleared me. I think back to that day in the elevator in the Bureau building, when Divine nearly caught me, far too often. It's the scenario that most often makes me bolt up in bed at night. Out of some miracle, I kept myself from getting dragged away, and from that first time I did it on accident, I wanted to do it again. Make myself common. Push the electricity and the fire and the flight in me down far enough in my bones that even the strongest of psychics could look at me and sense nothing.

Dr. Blythe puts up her hand when I pass a minute and twelve seconds; that's how long I managed to hold it last time. Often I find myself practicing this when I don't mean to, on nights when I try to go to sleep and I wake up with blood crusting my nose because I tried to Hide myself in my sleep.

That's what she calls it, at least. Hiding. Dr. Blythe thinks it's a subclass. 'Recluse.' She's been as eager to study it as I've been to try and hone it.

When I feel the pressure in the back of my skull, the telltale bite that says I'm going to bleed soon, I release that tether on myself, gasping in a breath as I let my body fill with static again. Dr. Blythe clicks on her stopwatch and says, "One forty-five." She scribbles it down on my chart. "Your stamina is getting better."

"Just with that," I say. "Wasting is still tough."

"That's just because it takes more energy to lift. It's like training a muscle. What about Expelling?"

"That's… easier. On my body."

She frowns. "Can you give me some electricity? Just a little?"

Thinking about it is easy enough. I unclip my stabilizer from my arm and turn my palm over, staring at my fingers until the impulse arrives and electricity suddenly starts to glitter on my fingers. I don't even realize I'm holding my breath until a couple seconds later, when watching my hand sparkle starts to make me feel nauseous and I know I have to stop.

"That's good. Just a few seconds is fine, Silvan."

"I… know."

"You're at a good place for only being six months out. This is only our third time trying it, remember?"

"I know."

"You're doing great. And you've been amazing help for my research so far."

"I'm glad to help. And I'm glad for your help, too."

"It's my pleasure. These are important discoveries," she says. "Arcadia was the first public step that our people took, no matter how problematic. It made all of us known and able to talk to others about it. I'm glad to be able to have access to those like you and Aki so I can build up some resources for us."

"I'm grateful for that, too." More psychics getting access to information about themselves means less people like Divine. Less psychics having to go through what Aki and I did. "Will you let me know when you're ready to publish?"

"You'll be one of the first to know." She winks at me. "I think we're all set for today. When do I see you next?"

"I think next month. January."

"January. Perfect. You and your friends are starting the WRGP soon, right?"

I slide off of the examination table. "Right."

"You keep an eye out for yourself. I'll look for you when I watch it."

"I will," I say. "See you next month."

I peek my head out of the door to the examination room, checking to see if there's anyone else in the hall. Dr. Blythe works out of a pediatrics office, so it's usually pretty likely that I'll bump into other doctors or nurses or children. I've seen some of the nurses flatten themselves against the walls when I've passed by them. Gods forbid they brush shoulders with a psychic.

Thankfully, the hallway is empty, so I rush back out the Well entrance and out into the parking lot. I linger on the back of Hiraeth before I drive out into the street, just to catch my breath.

I'm not the only psychic who's come to Dr. Blythe since Arcadia fell, and mostly we're coming for research purposes. So she can find out more about us and about herself, then publish her findings so kids like us won't have to live in the dark. So their parents, maybe, won't be so afraid of them. But it's mostly just her giving me a regular check-up, then testing my powers out and recording the results.

It's two birds with one stone, in some ways. I get a regular check-up with her to ask any questions about the way my body's adjusting to normality. My height and weight get taken, she asks me when my last period was, all that jazz. And afterward I get a place to practice using my powers for the first time since Arcadia—where the presence is reassuring, rather than commanding.

But I often wish I got something more out of it. I'm not sure what yet. Just… a sense of security, maybe. I wish that there was an easier way that I could adjust and figure out more about the things I can do. Divine and Arcadia sort of fucked that up for me.

Thinking about Divine always, always makes my throat burn, and somehow I've wound my way back to thinking about the trial on my way back to the apartment. Aki's decided to testify. That pressures me even more to make a decision. To make the decision to speak.

But I always feel too sick too fast to ever get out a coherent thought on it.

I park Hiraeth down in the workspace, and the place is empty, as usual. I check the work schedule taped to the fridge, posted among Evan's endless notes reminding me of things I have to do, and I find a pen to scribble on the bottom of an old note: _**WORK LESS : (**_

I feel like I never see my brother anymore, except for meals. I find myself missing him more and more. Besides, it's always easier to work through things if I have him to talk to.

So for more reasons than one, I end up on the guys' stoop. Maybe because I don't want to be alone. Maybe because I need someone to talk to. I don't know anymore.

When I knock, there's a long enough delay that makes me think no one's around, but right as I'm considering sulking my way back home, Yusei opens the door, wiggling his hands out of his work gloves. "Oh. Hey there."

"How are you?" I ask. "I wanted to come and check how you were doing."

"I'm okay." He runs a hand through his hair. "I'm procrastinating trying to program the simulator by making Rua a duel board."

"A—A what now?"

"Here, come look at it." He opens the door up a little wider. "It's just me today, Crow's at work and I think Jack's with Carly."

"Oh. Okay." I follow him down into the workspace, cluttered with tools and pieces of scrap. The simulator sits rebuilt, but untouched, to my right. The preliminaries are coming up pretty fast, and I know it's killing him to be unable to figure out how to debug the engine protocol, but I also know that he has no more ideas on how to fix it.

The thing Yusei shows me looks pretty much exactly like a skateboard. Just—sturdier, somehow.

"You put exhaust pipes on a skateboard?" I say flatly.

"It's electric," he explains. "Actually, it's Ener-D. I'm kind of proud of it. Here, look." He gropes for a screwdriver and takes the board from me, turning it on its back and unscrewing the back panel from the rest of the board. There's a motor in it, all right, near the fatter end at the back where the exhaust pipes are, but it's all fitted and surrounded by some wires and a familiar-looking motherboard.

"You… programmed a skateboard to turbo duel," I clarify.

"Pretty much, yeah."

"How'd you figure this out? Where did this idea even come from?"

"Rua came in yesterday all peeved about some kid in his class," Yusei explains as he replaces the board's back panel. "Someone who's apparently very interested in Ruka, but showed them all something like this and called it the future of riding duels. Which sounds ridiculous, but also, these are tweens, so I'm not going to argue."

"Fair."

"This kid gifted one to Ruka, and Rua asked me if it would be possible to recreate it so he could… I don't know. Fight this other kid?"

"Look at you, encouraging Rua to fight for his psychic sister's honor."

"Hey, I'm not encouraging anything. I didn't even ask exactly why Rua wanted it. But it was a good distraction and I pretty much invented this thing based on knowing what it was, not even looking at one or anything."

"Points to you for creativity, then. I assume you're all finished with it."

"Yeah, Rua's supposed to come by and get it after school. Which is… uh, what time is it?"

"I think it's one-ish? It's about that time."

"Okay. Cool. I'm not going anywhere, I can wait." He puts the board on the floor and kicks at it a little, like he's testing the wheels. "So what's going on with you?"

"I just saw Dr. Blythe."

"Really? How was that?"

"Fine," I say. "I've been Hiding more."

"Have you talked to Aki or Evan about that yet?"

"Not yet," I say. "I've sort of… it's been my secret so far, I guess. Unless she told Aki about it."

"I mean, you told me."

"Yeah, but you're not a psychic," I say.

"I know. But it would probably help Dr. Blythe's research if it wasn't just limited to you. If it wasn't actually a subclass, or something. And then you could practice with them, too."

"Maybe. I'll get around to it eventually."

He frowns at me. "What are you thinking about?"

"You first."

"If I can't get our godsdamned program to work, I think I'm going to drive myself off of a bridge."

"Please don't do that."

"I'm getting to that point," he exhales. He sinks down into the chair at the desk and looks up at me earnestly. "Your turn."

I lean against the desk. "...do you think I should testify for Misty?"

He frowns deeper.

"It's—been almost a month, and I'm still having a lot of trouble trying to decide," I say. "Aki's already sent a formal acceptance to Misty's lawyer, so she's all in. But… I'm…"

"What's stopping you?"

"Misty's trying for the death penalty," I tell him, "which only works if she's good enough to convince every person on the jury that he deserves it."

"He does deserve it."

"I know, but…!"

"You don't want him dead," he says, voice much lower.

"No, I don't," I admit. "I just… death is too easy. Mikage promised me he'd be in prison for life, and now he's just getting out because some motherfucker bought him community service hours."

"I'm not sure that's how it works—"

"Goodwin bought you out, so yeah, I'm pretty sure it's possible," I say.

"Goodwin was the Director of the Bureau and only 'bought' me out because I was part of his grand seventeen-year-plan," Yusei retorts. "And it doesn't matter, because he's technically the reason I was in there in the first place. Divine killed and tortured people, there's no logical reason as to why—"

"I know," I say. "But is this… is this all I get? I have to keep living with all of the mistakes he made, the things he put me through, and he just gets to die? He gets to escape it all instead of me?"

"...are you okay?" he murmurs.

"I don't feel better," I tell him, "and I don't feel different. Thinking about all of it sends me spiraling back. And I don't want it to, but I feel so… so stagnant. My whole life's become so clockwork that the only thing I have to think about is where I used to be. This whole trial thing feels like it's going to set me back further. Like maybe it might do something, me standing up in front of a judge and trying to detail all of it, but I still won't feel any different. Whether or not he dies, I won't feel anything else."

He stands and leans against the desk next to me; he extends an arm like an offering, or like he's afraid to touch me, and I fall in underneath it, my head against his shoulder.

"I think," he says slowly, after a while of silence, "that you need to process that what happened to you wasn't your fault. Have you learned any more about your parents?"

"I found a medical textbook in the stacks a few weeks ago," I say, "and my mother was in the glossary section. Dr. Rei Hamada, credited with perfecting the surgery they use to take tumors off of brain stems."

"She was a neurosurgeon?"

"Neuro-oncology. People from all over came to Neo Domino for her work, whether or not they were sick."

"Do you know what she was doing on Ener-D?"

"Research. She was halfway through a medical journal on radiation. While my dad was building your dad's machines, my mom was studying what they were doing to the people around them."

"Where'd you dig that up?"

"Mikage opened the records for me. There's a lot the Bureau has archived about that project."

"Hm." I listen to the sound of his breath. "Anything about her being a psychic?"

"Nothing," I murmur. "She was probably smart enough to keep it hidden."

"Your dad had to have known."

"If he was in competition with Divine, there's no doubt. If you can call Divine not taking rejection well 'competition'." I pause. "What about your parents?"

"My dad was born and raised here," he says. "He and your dad built the first functioning duel runner."

"I didn't know that."

"When my dad discovered planetary particles, he waited to publish until he had something to show for it. He published it with all of the blueprints and drawings and had a demonstration, and everything. He developed the Speed World protocols with one of the Kaiba heirs."

"It's in your blood," I say.

"Ours. And, you wanna know the funniest part?"

"Hm?"

"It's actually kind of nice. The scientific name for planetary particles is 'yuusei ryushi'."

"Oh." That sounds… familiar. I didn't know he'd never heard it before.

"Named his kid after his greatest discovery. How about that."

"How about your mom?"

"I don't think she was very prominent in her field," he says, "because I've looked all over, and I can't seem to find much about her. I'm pretty sure she was some type of quantum physicist, though."

"Mm. My dad was definitely a mechanical engineer. Though I'm not totally sure where he was from yet. I've narrowed it down to either Denmark or Sweden."

"Explains the blonde hair."

"Not really," I say. "My mom had to have been at least half Caucasian for me to not get dark hair. Plus a really lucky draw out of the gene pool."

"Oh, you're a geneticist now?"

"Stuff it."

He manages a little laugh. "Anyways, I almost lost the point of the conversation, but… I don't blame my parents for where I am now, and neither should you."

"I don't even know anymore," I admit. "I keep thinking about when we were in Ener-D, and I saw my mom there… she said she had the chance to fix it. That she didn't, and now I'm carrying her burden. Is she just taking the blame to take it, or is it really her fault?"

"It's Divine's fault for being such a gods-awful person."

"I mean, yeah."

"The way I see it," he says, "if you choose to testify, I think you're the key witness. You're living proof of everything Divine did. If anyone can kill him, so to speak, if anybody can make that jury dig his grave, it'll be you."

I swallow.

"And, I mean… you get to look at him in his stupid face and smile while you bury him."

I open my mouth, looking for a reply that doesn't seem to come, and the front door bangs open.

"Rua, is that you?" Yusei asks, turning toward the doorstep.

"It's meeeeee!" Rua vaults over the bottom of the railing on the ramp. "Hi Silvan!"

"Hey, kid. You mooching work off of the home mechanic?"

"Not mooching! He's helping me!"

"And it wasn't like it was hard," Yusei says nonchalantly. He crosses toward Rua to give him the duel board, leaving a sad lack of warmth at my side. "There's the helmet, too. You remember how to start it?"

"Yep!"

"And the wire for your duel disk is in the back right here."

Rua practically jumps onto Yusei. "Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou—"

"You're welcome," Yusei laughs. "Just be careful. Practice somewhere closed off first. If you're going to try using the duel lanes, stay off of the main drags. I don't want you trying to navigate through traffic on that thing."

"I will!"

"Let us know how the epic battle for your sister goes," I say. "I'm thinking of starting a betting pool."

Rua's face flushes. "You'd better be betting on me!" He dashes up the ramp, the duel board clenched in on hand and the helmet in the other. "Thanks, Yusei!"

"Have fun, be safe!" Yusei calls as Rua streaks out the door. "Well, there goes my excuse to stop programming."

"I'll look at it, if you want," I say. "But, as long as we're talking about my immediate problems, is this one yours?"

"What do you mean?"

"Is your most immediate problem the engine? Or is it your Synchro problem?"

He shakes his head. "I don't know. I feel like, if I figure the engine out, I'll feel better about all of it. It makes sense to me that something could happen during the WRGP, so if I feel prepared for that… maybe I'll feel prepared for the rest. Plus, there's the speed component of the Synchro thing."

"There's this other Synchro strategy," I say, "but you could always learn to run a new deck."

"I already thought about that, and it just isn't… it's just not my speed. Synchros are the most updated form of Fusion nowadays, anyways, and if I put them aside, I'll be a step behind the competition."

"Competition," I parrot. "Why do you keep using that word?"

"I just want to get better," he says. "Is that so bad?"

"No. If you're afraid, you're allowed to try and not be afraid anymore. I'm just trying to figure out if there's an easier way to help."

"Well, I appreciate the moral support."

"Me too."

He comes back to the desk, leaning beside me again, and for some reason I become ten times more aware of how close I'm standing to him and I say, "Have you heard from Aki?"

He blinks, bewildered. "Why?"

"Just—because she started with riding and all that. I didn't know if you were still keeping tabs on her or anything. You did teach her, after all."

"I hear from her when she's around," he says. "We don't really… hang out. Not like me or Jack or Crow or you hang out with each other. Are you still seeing her and Carly for coffee every week?"

"Yeah, of course."

"Do you know how she's doing?"

"Fine, I think. She shows up beaming on the back of that duel runner. And I definitely think she would have told me if something had happened, like if she'd crashed or something."

"She did have a lot more time to practice, and with actual teachers," he wonders. "Makes sense she'd be having a better time of things. Even you had two days with a teacher and did pretty okay."

"I flew ten feet off of my duel runner my first five seconds in Satellite."

"You also got dropped from a helicopter, so that's an unfair standard." His fingers graze the scar on my neck, brushing my hair aside carefully enough that it makes me shiver. "I don't want to tell you what you should and shouldn't do, Silvan, but I think that this would be some route to closure for you."

"Do I even have a choice anymore?" I ask.

"Have you gotten any documents?"

"Yeah, just the official stuff. The intent to sue and all that. The court date's been set halfway through the WRGP, so I'd have to take a break for it and everything."

"Did it say what she was suing for?"

"Human trafficking. Murder. All the fun stuff."

He sighs through his nose. "Do you know any of the other witnesses? Or potential ones?"

"No. Just Aki."

"Well, I don't know what you want me to tell you anymore, Silvan. Do you want me to try to convince you?"

"I don't know," I say. "Make it sound less awful. Change how I feel about it."

"Well, let's see. Divine's an absolutely insufferable, abusive, malignant travesty of a human being from who-knows-where who pined after a lady who saw right through him and didn't want him back. He started a research and testing facility for his own people disguised as a haven for them and projected so hard on children he was still bitter about that he literally kidnapped one to try to indoctrinate her into thinking that he was her father. And didn't even remotely raise her like any person should. And then after having his hellscape laboratory destroyed by two giant demons, he came back to try and strongarm people into being in his damn pity-party army. Should I keep going?"

"No, I… I get it…"

"He's a shit human being, Silvan. I think he deserves to die more than anyone else."

"Okay," I breathe. "I… still don't know. Can I look at the program?"

He blinks at me. "You want to… come again?"

"If I work I won't have to think about anything else for a while. Let me look at it."

"That's not a good way to deal with your problems, you know." He shakes his head and turns to the desktop.

"Don't tell me how to cope, Yusei Fudo."

"Hey, I do it too, that's why I'm allowed to tell you that it's bad."

I lean on the table as he logs in and starts the program up, and as I start to look at the lines of code, I realize that it's in a different language than it was when I last saw it. "Did you change the dialect?"

"Yeah, a couple times."

"Oh boy. That's. Yay. I should get more books, then."

"Here, I'll show you some." He pulls the chair out to sit down and stumbles, almost smacking his head on the desk as he hits the floor. I lunge down to try to catch him, and he reaches for me. His arm's ablaze with red light.

"Yusei," I gasp. "Are you… what's happening?"

This is the first time I've seen it glow in six months. He looks up at me, his face suddenly ashen, and grabs onto me as I pull him to his feet. His other hand is clenched over the mark. I reach to put my hand over it, too, like I can stifle the light and the heat, and air hisses out from between his teeth.

"What's wrong? What's happening?"

From between gritted teeth, he says "We have to go."

"Where?"

"Ruka. She's in trouble, but I don't… I have to go to her."

I'm not going to ask any more questions about it. I go running out the back, opening the garage door to use as an exit, and make a break for my apartment. I wrench the garage door open and pull Hiraeth out into the open, then I close up and idle in the plaza until Yusei comes streaking out of the back alley behind the loft. I don't know where we're going, but I'm going to follow.

The mark glowing for the first time in so long is not a good sign. And that Yusei can feel that it's Ruka in trouble… that's even more worrying.

It gets even worse when we merge into a main causeway and are suddenly driving alongside Jack, Crow, and Aki. Crow's still in his work jacket and Aki's in her school uniform. They're all glowing, too.

It makes sense that everyone would come running. But what's happening?

We turn onto a section of the highway that cuts across the sound. We haven't been following the road for very long when the sky suddenly turns pink. Speed World 2.

Up ahead, there's a huge spindly blue duel monster skating alongside somebody on a duel board. The data from the duel shows up on my duel screen. It looks like it's the sixth turn, everyone has five Speed Counters, and the person closest to us with the machine monster is at the start of their turn.

After drawing, they throw out a hand. "I activate the effect of Meklord Emperor Skiel Infinity! I can equip it with your Ancient Fairy Dragon and increase the ATK of my monster by the ATK of yours!"

4300 ATK—how long have they been here that someone could boost a monster to 4300?

Also… Meklord Emperor. That sounds familiar. Unsettlingly familiar.

"I now activate the Speed Spell - Summon Close! By sending a card from my hand to the Grave, I can draw another card and prevent you both from Special Summoning any monsters until the end of this turn! Go, Skiel, attack!"

The blue Meklord thing glides towards Rua, its sickle-like hands crawling out toward him like metal spiders.

"I activate Twinkle Wall!" Ruka flips over a facedown. "I can negate your attack by dealing myself damage equal to half of Skiel's ATK!"

I can feel the air vibrate—Ruka's Life Points plummet to 350 on my duel screen. My stomach churns. That can't be possible. Am I imagining things? Or… was that real damage?

The duelist with the Meklord sets a facedown and throws the field to the twins.

It must be Rua's turn, because he's the next one to draw. There's already a monster on his field; my duel screen has labelled it 'Morphtronic Boomboxen.' "I summon Morphtronic Scopen in Attack Position! Then, I'll tune Morphtronic Scopen with Morphtronic Boomboxen in order to Synchro Summon my Power Tool Dragon!"

I'm not sure I've ever seen that monster—it must be Rua's ace. Come to think of it, I'm not sure I've seen either of the twins duel before.

"Next, I activate the Speed Spell - Summon Speeder! It's going to allow me to Special Summon Morphtronic Vaccumen in Defense Position!"

Zero ATK and DEF... It must have a special ability.

"Now I trigger Morphtronic Vaccumen's special ability! I can equip one of your monsters to mine in order to raise its ATK, and I choose your Meklord Emperor Skiel Infinity!"

"Not so fast!" The other kid throws over their facedown. "Convert Ghost! This makes your target a monster in my Graveyard—Sky Core!"

Rua, gaining no ground or ATK points through his effort to help Ruka, sets a card down and throws the field to the Meklord controller.

Who is this person? And why have they cornered the twins out here?

The other duelist draws, but Rua tosses up the facedown he set. Everyone's Speed Counters are at 7. "I activate Power Break! During the beginning of your turn, I can return all Equip Spells on the field to their owner's deck, and you take 500 points in damage for each one! In addition to that, Ancient Fairy Dragon is now free!"

On my duel screen, it displays the Meklord duelist's Life Points at 2200; the same as the new ATK of the Meklord. "I activate the effect of Speed World 2! By tributing my seven Speed Counters, I'll be drawing a card!"

Since they gave up all seven, it slows them down so that they're almost pulled back to being among our duel runners. Yusei, at the head of our charge, pulls back so fast that I can see his duel runner jerk against the road. Concern for him bubbles up in my stomach.

"Now, I activate Sky A3! I can send Skiel Attack to the Graveyard in order to summon Skiel Attack 3!"

Skiel's wing suddenly detaches, and a different piece of metal takes its place to keep it in flight. On my duel screen, it shows that the Meklord's ATK has increased by 200 points.

"In my hand, I hold Skiel Attack 5! By tributing Skiel Attack 3, I can summon it! In addition, this card allows me to attack my opponents directly!"

The new wing detaches and vanishes, giving an even bigger attachment room to join the body of the Meklord. It reaps its claws towards Rua, who loses his balance and goes flying. Power Tool Dragon and Morphtronic Vaccumen explode into tiny yellow shards.

The blast is so powerful that Rua goes flying off of his Duel Board. We're at a point in the track where the barriers are only at about ankle height, and there's a split second where he's free falling toward the sound. My heart rises up into my throat, and I kick on my breaks so hard that my whole body jostles against the dashboard. There's resistance when I Waste toward him, trying to yank him back up above the bridge. Like something is pulling back against me.

My boots, planted firmly on the asphalt… start to drag.

Then wind sucks past me, and a creature that looks like a tongue of fire careens down over the edge of the barricade. For a moment, I'm frozen, then I see its face as it crests back up over the side: vicious teeth, a molten yellow eye. And… it's carrying Rua.

I pull my hand back and the coursing scarlet fire pulls Rua into my arms. My fingertips tremor as they try to Internalize that warmth, that power… and then it's gone. I realize that I've stopped breathing, and heave in an inhale as I try to look over Rua and actually register if he's okay. He's scraped up and has a bruise on his jaw, but otherwise he looks okay.

"Are—Are you okay?!" I squeak.

"I'm okay!" he takes a second to catch his breath. "I don't… ahh, I don't know what just happened!"

"Me neither, but… but you're alive," I exhale.

"You're bleeding," he says.

I wipe my nose. "Don't worry about it." I almost dropped him. And it wasn't because I couldn't carry him. I've lifted Jack before, I've lifted a duel runner before. Something was pulling back on me. Had it not been for the Dragon, I might have been pulled down with Rua.

I swallow. "Hold on to me."

Rua clings to my back, and I start off again down the highway.

We somehow manage to catch up to Ruka, who's alone with 350 LP. The mystery duelist sets a card face down and turns everything back to her.

"Do you know this person?" I call over the air rushing past us.

"His name's Lucciano!" Rua exclaims. "He's the jerkoff from our class!"

"Hey, keep it PG!" A kid in Rua and Ruka's class, packing a monster dealing real damage?

"I summon Regulus!" Ruka tosses the card across her duel disk, and an armored lion emerges from a circle of cyan light. "Because I control him, I can activate the Trap, Ancient Sunshine! If I remove Ancient Fairy Dragon from my Extra Deck, I can inflict her ATK on you in damage!"

"Ah ah ah! I activate Infinity Force! This card reduces damage I take this turn to zero as well as destroys every monster on your field!"

Ruka can't do anything else but end her turn—she doesn't have any cards in her hand. As soon as Lucciano takes his turn, Skiel descends on her, too, and fires a red arrow of light at her. Ruka sails towards the barrier but suddenly tilts back onto the track as if something I can't see picked her up and reoriented her. She ekes to a stop, looking tired and beat up. Lucciano rides away, Skiel disappearing particle by particle, and he too vanishes over a crest in the bridge up ahead.

"Thanks for, um... Catching me," Rua admits.

"I wouldn't let you fall," I say. But I can't stop thinking about that opposite force. That pull. If Evan had been here, could he have helped me catch Rua? Or would he have been dragged forward all the same?

Ruka comes running towards us, and I let Rua down off of my duel runner to meet her. Ruka throws her arms around him. The rest of the my friends dismount their duel runners and gather around us.

"Are okay?! Are you hurt?!"

"I'm fine! I'm okay!" Rua looks around to us with wide eyes. "You guys, I'm pretty sure the Crimson Dragon showed up for a second there!"

That's—That's what that was. The Crimson Dragon. I've only seen it once, very far away. When Yusei defeated Goodwin all that time ago. I tunnel into myself, searching for that fire, trying to see if it stayed. Ruka's head snaps around toward me, but she doesn't say anything.

"That's… a bad sign?" Crow asks.

I look between my friends, checking their expressions. No one looks happy.

"I don't know what it means," Ruka murmurs.

Yusei's looking off after the duelist that disappeared. I reach for him, skimming my hand across his shoulder, and when he looks back at me he looks like he's going to be sick. The color has left his face.

"Let's go home," I whisper.

He nods slowly, lips pressed together in a thin line. He has this look on his face like he wants to run away. I have this sinking feeling that, as soon as we get back, he's going to lock himself in his room and not come out. I need to get him to talk to me.

I try to squeeze his shoulder, maybe for reassurance, and—he rips away from me. Beelines for his duel runner. I feel my heart in my throat as I turn to the others, and the first person I set my eyes on is Aki. "Will you—take the twins home? Please?"

Her eyebrows crinkle together as she frowns. "What's going on?"

"I don't know. Can I call you later?" Yusei's duel runner zips off down the highway; not in Lucciano's direction, but toward home. Good. That's one thing I don't have to worry about.

Crow's the first one to move after that. He just about sprints toward his own duel runner, and I throw a pleading look in Aki's direction. She gives me a look in return that says I'll have to do more than just call her later. She wants to be involved, too.

But I think I know Yusei. I'm pretty sure I know Yusei. And even in all the months of nightmares, I've never seen that expression I just saw on his face.

I race to Hiraeth, and Jack's already on the back of Wheel Of Fortune. Counting Crow, the three of us dash off in pursuit of Yusei, who's long gone and somewhere up the road. Have Crow and Jack seen this… this fear from him before? I didn't have time to ask.

We make it into the plaza in time to see Yusei out front of the guys' flat, his helmet dangling from his hand as he fumbles for his apartment key with the other. He didn't go around back to take his duel runner inside, he's just trying to get inside.

I nearly vault off of my duel runner while it's still moving, and when I'm actually stopped, I throw out my hand. There's a loud clanging noise as the lock mechanism in the door bursts and the door flies open. I'll fix that for them later. Yusei dashes down the ramp, me on his tail; we've almost reached the couch by the time Crow and Jack are inside with us.

I hear the door close, someone kicking the pieces of the deadbolt on the doorstep, and Yusei—crumples. Crow and Jack both make the same noise of concern and race for him.

"Wait, wait, _wait_!" I cry. I dive for him, too, and I pull him up off of the floor into my arms. It's better than being a sad little ball curled up on the concrete.

"What's going on?" Jack presses. "How do we help?"

That fear on his face was so—so real. I've never seen something so plainly in his expression before, but now I get it. At least, I think I do.

"Does he have meds?" I say soberly.

I see Jack's face change as he understands—and he shakes his head slowly.

"Go see if Evan's home. If he's not, you know where the spare key is. In the bathroom upstairs, in the loft, there's a little black thing on the counter that has my pills in it. Go get the bottle that says 'Valium'."

"Okay. Valium. Okay." He bolts up the ramp, repeating the name of the medicine as he goes.

"What can I do?" Crow presses.

"Open the windows. Maybe some water, too."

Crow jumps up to follow my directions, leaving me there on the floor with Yusei. I can feel him trying to get in a steady breath, but all that comes in or out are breaths that sound like hiccups.

"Breathe," I whisper. "I'll do it with you. Count. In for eight, hold for four, out for eight."

I take in slow breaths, counting them in my head, until I hear him start trying to copy me. I don't say anything, I just breathe and listen to him breathe until he's not trembling anymore. Just when I think he could be okay, a sob cracks out of him and it's almost like something in me breaks in response.

He was stuck back there. Crumbling. Nowhere to go. That's what it was. And when I said 'home,' that was his out. The quickest way for him to escape so his friends didn't have to see him absolutely lose it.

Jack comes streaking back in through the front door with my pill bottle, and as soon as I see him, I say, "Take one out and break it in half, if you can."

The both of them are helpful and silent; Crow and Jack sit there with us, waiting, until I can manage to coax Yusei into taking medicine and a drink of water.

I'm still holding Yusei up, for the most part, when Crow looks to me like he wants permission to talk. I offer a nod and he says, his voice low, "Talk to us, Yusei."

"That's—the symbol on that thing, it's like what the Ghost had," he gasps. "There's more of them. It could've killed them. It almost killed them."

"That's not your fault," I murmur.

"But I—I couldn't do anything—"

"Hey, hey, just because you got pinned with the responsibility last time does not mean that it's up to you to keep saving the rest of us," Jack interjects. "Come on. That's not your job."

"You're _one_ person," Crow adds. "The entire world does not fall to you, okay? We're a team, we're in everything together."

After a second of silence, he says, "What did you give me? My heart's still pounding but everything else slowed down. I don't like it."

"It's just to calm you down," I murmur. "Your heart rate will slow down if you keep breathing. It's okay."

Crow, Jack, and I sit there with him for a long time, and my hand's clutched in his shirt where his scar should be like I can anchor him through it.

Our friend who thinks he has to carry the world. If this savior mindset is giving him panic attacks now, though, I'm going to start pressing him even harder to go see a doctor.

Plus, there's all of this… collateral. These monsters that can deal real damage. Whatever was pulling back on me when I was trying to help Rua… and the Crimson Dragon.

I need to do some research.


	39. Waking Up All Night

That night after Yusei's breakdown is a dark night for me, too.

Crow and Jack are so worried that they try their best to stay up, wandering the halls and up and down from the loft like ghosts to check on him.

I helped him take off all of the uncomfortable unnecessary things—his shoes and his gloves and his coat and his belt—and Jack brought down the quilt from Yusei's bed to wrap him up in, since we couldn't really get him to move much further away from the couch.

I sit, quiet and near invisible on the floor, watching him toss and turn and try to keep his eyes shut for more than a few minutes. This may be worse than the months we suffered through after the Dark Signers.

When he isn't trying to get some sleep, he sits up to drink some water, which is good. I keep track of how many times I stand to refill the glass so I know how much more he needs before I'm sure he's hydrated.

The waiting isn't the hard part, nor is the watching. No, it's sometime later when the air feels that eerie sort of different that three or four AM brings, and I suddenly realize that he hasn't moved for quite a while.

And as soon as I notice, that's when the thrashing begins.

I've learned that Yusei isn't a sleep talker or walker, and he certainly doesn't snore like his other roommates, but his nightmares are always violent. He throws his arm out against the coffee table like trying to push someone away from him, and the only reason his water glass doesn't hit the floor and shatter is because I manage to Waste it in time to save it.

I do the only thing I can think of, and I reach for his hand, whichever one I can touch first. I squeeze it to let him know I'm there, and he pulls at me, but now that I have his hand in mine I can kneel down next to him and put my other hand against his cheek.

"You're okay," I say. "It's not real. You're not there."

Words he used to say when we first fought through the hard nights together and slept in shifts. Words I say to myself on the rare nights I'm brave enough to crawl into bed at a decent hour.

"Hey. Come back. It's not real."

After a second, he squeezes back, and his breathing gets a little less chaotic. I can see his eyes glittering in the darkness, and he looks right at me and asks, "C?"

That knocks the breath right out of me. And I think he sees it in my expression, because he bolts up to sitting and puts his hands on my face. "Fuck me, I am _so_ sorry. You're not… Silvan, you're Silvan."

"It's okay," I say, swallowing the lump in my throat. "I know what you meant."

"It's not okay. I don't know why… I'm so sorry. I didn't—"

"It's all right. You don't have to apologize." I press my hands over his, where they rest on both sides of my face. His hands are much colder than they usually are. "You're okay. Not real, remember?"

"What… What time is it?"

"Late. It's okay. You don't have to sleep, but I do want you to at least lie down."

"...can you stay with me?" he sounds like a sheepish little boy.

"I'm not going anywhere, Yusei."

"Okay…"

I don't actually know if he's ever had an episode like that before. So, in the morning, when we're both bleary-eyed and half-asleep, I call Audrey and make Yusei drink a cup of coffee before I drag him to my therapist's office to try and get him some help. I sit in the waiting room by myself, my leg bouncing like mad, for something like two and a half hours before Yusei finally comes back out, pale as a sheet, and Audrey tells me that I need to bring him back next week. I'm still playing over the night in my head, his expression and the sincerity in his voice when he called me C.

He's very silent, very small, for the next few days, and I come over to see him as often as I can. Before work, after kickboxing, in between my own therapy sessions. My time with Audrey is pretty much spent with me talking about how worried I am about him.

Audrey says that, under her oath, she can't tell me anything they talked about in the two hours he was here, but she does tell me that he talks like the type of person who tries to carry more and more without understanding how much he can actually support. I'm already doing as much as I can to help him, she tells me, and that's more than enough.

Doesn't change the worry, though.

I kill time with Yusei by looking at the program again, combing through the code and trying to debug as much as I can understand—it's a lot for someone who can pretty much only code in SQL. It still isn't anywhere near running the way Yusei wants it to, and in three days, I've looked at it enough that I've already committed it to memory and I can almost understand whatever convoluted, modernized assembly language everything is written in.

I almost think it could be a good distraction, but it's just a lot of him looking over my shoulder and thinking out loud, nearly ripping his hair out, or twitching his hand toward the keyboard like he wants to try writing something else out.

He says my name—a lot. Like he hasn't stopped thinking about calling me the wrong name. And, honestly, the more attention he draws to it, the harder it is for me to forget about it, too. But it's also like he's lost control of his mouth and just talks before he thinks lately so I'm not sure if I'm willing to blame him. And I'm not sure if he called me 'C' because he forgot where he was, or if his nightmare pulled him back into the past.

Anyways, halfway through this miserable week, I hurry home from an early shift at the garage so that I can make myself something to eat and then head right over to Yusei. I feel like I could be overwhelming him, but right now the unending concern about his state of mind is winning out. I should ask him if he wants me to leave him alone.

I'm making myself a PB&J when the garage door slides open, and Evan rolls Vertigo into the workspace. "Look who I found outside," he says. Aki peeks out from around him, holding a heavy-looking tote bag full of books.

"Hey," I say, swiping peanut butter off of my knife and onto my finger. "What's up?"

"I, um." Aki's face flushes. "So I've sort of been keeping my distance because I don't really know how to contribute to how Yusei's been feeling lately, but today I thought I might be a distraction or something? So I brought my homework to ask him for help—"

"Physics and Calculus?"

"Mmhm. I figured it'd be pretty rudimentary for him." Her face turns pinker. The underlying message in that is definitely ' _so we can spend more time together_ '. "Also I actually do need help."

"Okay." I run my knife under the faucet and stick it in the dishwasher before I start putting the bread and stuff away. "Here to ask if it's safe to go over?"

"No—No, actually, I um… I did go over. And he's, um. Busy."

" _Busy_?" I say, feeling my entire body pause. "Doing _what_?"

"Search and Rescue apparently picked up a new stray today," Evan says thinly.

I blink at him. "Uh. Come again?"

"He has this new friend over," Aki explains. "I went up to the loft to ask for his help, and he was knee deep in conversation with this person I've never seen before. Jack and Crow were there, too, and I think they'd long given up trying to get his attention."

"Oh," I say. "That's… no offense, but that sounds fake. I've been watching him all week, he's been too jittery to do anything productive, he won't get up unless I practically make him—"

"I know, it sounds… after what you told me had happened, it felt so weird and out of place. Like he shouldn't be in the mood to be all chatty with somebody none of us have ever met. But he was."

I swing the cupboard door shut. "And this person was _in_ the loft?"

"Yeah! Talking up a storm with Yusei. New best friends." Aki shrugs, but she doesn't seem angry. Just disappointed. "So, long story short, I actually do need help with my homework."

"Ah, right," I say. "I can help. Let's see how cooperative my photographic ass brain wants to be today. Do you want to knock out Physics or Calculus first?"

"Uh, let's do Physics first. There's less of it." Aki sets out her books on the coffee table and I sit on the floor next to her, sandwich in hand, to look at what she has.

"Number one," she reads plainly. "An airplane accelerates down a runway at 3.20 m/s squared for 32.8 s until it finally lifts off the ground. Determine the distance traveled before takeoff."

"Set up the problem," I say. "You're looking for distance. D is going to equal the initial velocity multiplied by the time, plus 0.5 multiplied by acceleration and time squared. The initial velocity is 0, time is 32.8 seconds, plus 0.5 times 3.2 meters per second times 32.8 seconds squared. After that, it's simple math."

"Wait, but the 0.5."

"What about it?"

"Where does that come from?"

"It's from the derivative of the equation. You have to calculate keeping in mind inertia."

"Are all the others set up the same way?"

"How many questions are there?" I ask.

"Twenty. My professor told us to use this equation, but I always have difficulties setting it up. I mix up the time and the acceleration because the last part says to multiply the time squared and the acceleration is marked in meters per second squared."

"It's less confusing in practical application," I tell her. "Since you figure out what to do instead of a textbook telling you."

"My brain's really not built for this," she says as she scribbles onto her page. "I'm better at Biology. And Algebra. Geometry, too, actually. You know what? I'm better at every other math and science besides these ones."

"And that's perfectly all right. No one is built for everything."

"Says the girl with the eidetic memory," Evan calls from the fridge.

"I didn't choose for that, you know!" I tell him. "I'm built for everything except, you know, functioning like a normal fucking person."

"How does that work?" Aki asks. "Like… what does it all look like?"

"It's… sort of like I'm full of all these drawers that hold all of this different information. And I can pick and choose and recall anything I want, but usually one thing reminds me of something else and I jump from subject to subject before I can remember what I was trying to remember. When that doesn't happen, it's sort of like I don't even have to think about it. It's just like. Something will come up, or someone will ask some question, and my brain just goes, 'oh, I know that'. Unless it's people or events. Anything not written down, pretty much."

"What about events and people? How do you remember those things?"

"Differently, usually. Like I have different memories of meeting all of you than the ones I have now."

"Different memories," Evan repeats.

"Like, when I try to think about it now, I have a completely different image of you when we met than my memories of you now."

"That's… spooky."

"Yeah," I say, grinning. "You were taller and less annoying."

"Okay, shut up."

Aki giggles. "Hey, can you help me with this one, too?"

I move closer to her to get a better look at the page. "Length of a runway... Hmm... Well, it's asking for distance, but you aren't given enough information to use the first formula, so use the final velocity squared equal to the initial velocity squared plus two times the acceleration and the distance, then solve for d."

"Okay. Great."

"What year are you again, Aki?" Evan asks.

"Upper third."

"So you graduate this year? Or next year?"

"End of this year. It'll be… something."

"Something?" Evan chuckles. "Nervous?"

"I guess? I just. I don't know what to do afterward."

"I mean, that's fair."

"Have you guys ever considered going to school?" Aki asks, not even looking up from her paper. "You'd definitely kill it. Top of your class, probably."

"The thought of going to school makes my depression worse, thanks," I say.

"Oh, come on. It isn't that bad."

"You're right! Let me wake up at six to go wear a starchy uniform and sit in a classroom learning how to follow directions for eight straight hours. Sounds like fun." I pick at my nails. "I've had enough of school."

"Well, Duel Academia isn't like…" Aki pauses. She's deciding what to say. "It's… not like learning from Divine."

"I'd rather not take my chances."

She sighs, but doesn't argue further. Evan closes a cabinet, which cracks the brief silence. "I'd be interested in going to a university, maybe."

Aki perks up a little. "Really?"

"I mean, I do think primary and secondary schools are kind of useless for me at the moment. I've taught myself enough that I'd really only like to go learn about the super intense tech. The stuff they don't have available in the public domain."

"That's really amazing. I think if you want to, you should try for it. You're definitely smart enough. And the worst they can say is no."

"I guess you're right."

"I've thought about university, too, actually," Aki says. "But I don't know what I would go for. There's nothing that I… well, I don't really have anything that I love yet."

"What about dueling?" I say. "You could go pro."

"I feel like I may have botched my chance at that in the Fortune Cup," she sighs. "What with the… um… destruction."

"Right…"

"Maybe I'll do something for other psychics," Aki suggests. "Like Dr. Blythe."

"Yeah," I murmur.

There's a pause before Aki passes me her paper again, asking for help setting up number thirteen; the question asks about the height of a thrown baseball before it reaches its maximum height.

"You have to find the final velocity before you can find the distance, so use Vf equals initial velocity plus acceleration multiplied by time, then plug the final velocity into Vf squared equals initial velocity squared plus 2 times acceleration and distance, solving for d."

"Got it."

Evan breathes a heavy sigh. "...sorry, guys, I'm still hung up on why the fuck Yusei's making new friends when he's been pretty much out-of-commission all week."

"You and me both, man," I say. "I… dragged him off to see Audrey, you know."

"How'd that go?"

"They were in there for a long time," I say. "Obviously I'm not allowed to hear what they talked about, but she told me to bring him back. I think there's a lot he just hasn't talked to anyone about."

"How much, do you think?" Aki asks softly.

"I don't know," I admit. "I don't know for sure how far back it goes. But I think he's still beating himself up about the Dark Signers. A lot."

Evan stoops over the kitchen island, on his elbows, to enter the conversation a little more. "What makes you say that?"

"This whole WRGP thing—it's a training exercise for him," I say. "Already, when we started mapping out the engine design, he wanted it complete so that they'd have better, more streamlined duel runners to keep up with their competition. He suggested it, anyways, he wanted equal footing with whatever they were going up against."

"And Jack and Crow?" Evan asks.

"They're just now getting into everything that's been up with him. Yusei's been so slow at trying to mend things with them, he never tells them anything, and they're too afraid to overstep their boundaries because they don't know what's still touchy."

Evan groans. "Why are we all so bad at dealing with our problems?"

"That's not even the half of it," I continue. "This whole… Ghost thing, it has Yusei terrified. And I don't even know what happened out there, that first time, besides that the thing was a robot rider and it carried this monster that disabled Synchro Summons and dealt real damage."

"The same thing that Rua and Ruka fought," Aki adds.

"Right. Which was what sent him into panic mode earlier. Because now it's not a contained issue. And it doesn't just involve him anymore."

Aki rubs her hand along her arm. "He wants it to."

"Yeah. Because he thinks he's supposed to be the hero."

"Gods, I hate it when he does that," Evan gripes. "It's almost like his failsafe. He always dials back to shouldering other people's' problems. Always."

"Right. He tried to take the blame for the duel gang thing, he tried to keep me and Crow from getting anywhere near the Dark Signers… the only thing, I think, that he's ever done for himself was when he left Satellite to chase after Jack."

"Yeah, well… I guess being needlessly selfless doesn't negate a desire for retribution."

"Guess not."

"Do we know how to help him?" Aki asks. "Does anyone?"

"Dunno about you guys, but I barely know how to help myself," I confess. "I want to believe this engine mod is the first step. It'll lessen his fears about the WRGP. And if he can use it to train and hone himself, he'll feel better about the rest. That's all I can hope for until he finally decides to talk. And I don't care who he talks to, I just need it to be someone."

"That why you've been teaching yourself Yusei's weird assembly algorithms?"

"'Weird'?" Aki asks.

"Know anything about coding, Aki?"

"Ah… Just a little. It's on my bucket list of things to try out."

"To make a long fucking story short," I say, "computers are only smart enough to work in absolutes. A yes or a no. So you can use different code languages to turn absolutes into conditionals and make a program do something or a series of somethings or whatever else. Some languages are easier to use than others, but most of them have different ways of telling the programs to do things."

"Okay… That seems simple enough in theory."

"Right," I say. "So Yusei's changed the language like four or five times."

"Changed it?"

"He's rewritten it entirely in several different dialects," Evan adds. "Which takes a lot of time and way overcomplicates things."

"I think he just got tired of trying to debug," I say, turning toward Aki. "You know, going through the same thing a billion times and trying to change things and figure out why it isn't working. And he's playing with the assembly language a ton, which is totally different because it's a vehicle-exclusive type of code. Also I'm running out of books to memorize."

"Do we know anybody who could help?"

"No. Not so far."

"I stopped trying to look at it the second or third time he changed languages," Evan confesses. "Crow's a whiz at building, but his coding is pretty abysmal, and Jack's clueless at everything but plugging shit in."

"Which leaves me," I say. "And I can code pretty easily in one language. I'm passable in a few others. It's a good thing I work at a library, because I'm doing a lot of research. And I know how Yusei thinks most of the time, so… I don't know. Maybe we're both just missing something."

"We'll all be happier when it's done," Aki says.

"If it's done," Evan retorts.

I shoot him a look.

"We'll all be less on edge," Aki adds, a little stronger—probably to get us to pay attention to her. "Less worried about each other."

"Right," I murmur.

The moments after that are silent save for the scratching of Aki's pencil on the paper. Aki asks me to help her two more times, on number sixteen and number twenty. Then she starts to go back through and do the math.

Maybe halfway through, there's a knock on the door. Yusei pokes his head into the apartment. "Silvan!"

Everyone around me flinches. He sounds… strangely enthusiastic, given the mood he's been in lately. "Hey. Doing… okay?"

"Yeah, I've been texting you for half an hour! I need you to come over right now, I'm figuring out the program!"

"You—huh?"

"Come on, before I lose my train of thought. Please?"

"I—" I throw Evan a pleading look.

He rolls his eyes. "I'll help you, Aki."

Aki waves me off. "Go on. I'm glad you're feeling better, Yusei."

"...thanks," he says. He smiles a little at her.

I jump up. "Do I… do you want me to bring anything?"

"No, just yourself." He holds the door open and gestures eagerly for me to follow him. I start up and out the door, side by side with him as we begin the short walk across the square.

The sky is dark with clouds. "Looks like it's going to rain."

"Forecast says it's supposed to pour."

"...so, what's got you in such a working mood?"

"Last night, Ushio and Mikage invited us out for dinner," he says. "Us, being me, Jack, and Crow."

"That's not weird."

"They were basically trying to bribe us to look after this guy they found washed up on the beach, but that's not—he's _really_ smart—"

"And you adopted him," I say. "And… now he's helping you fix the program."

"...yeah…"

"Okay. Whatever helps. And you know I'm happy to, also."

"Thank you." He pauses. "Not just for that. You've been a really good friend to me. I'm really grateful for it."

"Hey, I'm with you to the grave, remember? We promised."

"To the grave," he repeats softly.

He opens the door for me, and together we head down into the apartment. There's a guy standing there, surveying the guys' duel runners. He's really tall, and the garage lights glisten off of his shoulder-length cobalt hair.

There's something familiar about him. I just don't know what it is.

"Yusei!" He says, like he's had an epiphany. "You must be Silvan!"

"That's me," I tell him, throwing a look toward Yusei, who mouths he asked.

He comes towards me to overzealously shake my hand, and I notice that he reaches for me with his left before switching to his right. "I'm Bruno. It's great to meet you! I'm glad to have you to help us."

"Nice to meet you. I'm happy to help in whatever way I can. So you have an idea to help out with the program?" I ask. "Yusei and I have been trying to get it right for months, and it either explodes or wears itself out."

"You guys were fairly close," he tells me. "It's pretty solid—not bad for Dr. Fudo's son and Dr. Levine's daughter."

"Wait, what?" I ask as he wanders back towards the guys' duel runners. "Yusei? Did he know our dads? How _old_ is he?"

"No, no, he's not _that_ old," he sighs. Something tells me that he's already had this chat with Bruno. "He's a walking computer. Washed up on the west coastline with amnesia. All he's got in his memory is technology—my dad developed the planetary gear, yours was the first guy to put it in a machine, makes sense that he'd know about them."

If he's not old enough to know their relevance, then where did he learn about them?

I sigh through my nose. It'll have to wait for later, after we're done working. The three of us pull up chairs around the computer and get started.

It's a slow process. We comb through the entire encryption and Bruno stops us to tell us what to edit. At some point, Yusei goes upstairs to steal his desktop from his room so that we can debug a little faster. I hook it up next to the second one, Bruno splices the entire program in half, and sends the second half to the other monitor so that he can go through the second bit himself and start editing. Then he tells Yusei and me what to look for on the rest of our half so that we can meet in the middle.

It takes hours and we have a lot of coffee and ramen for both a late lunch and a very late dinner. Rain is pounding away at the windows and the clock reads sometime past one in the morning when we splice the edited halves back together and rename the file.

"I'm seeing numbers," I yawn. "Absolutely everywhere. There are binaries burned into my corneas."

"Where's the fun in seeing like a regular person?" Yusei retorts.

I swat him. Bruno laughs. "That took us a while..." He stops mid-sentence to yawn. "I think it'll work well, though!"

"Thanks for all your help," Yusei says. "Really. We've been struggling with this for too long. You don't know how much this means to me, especially."

Bruno beams. "You're welcome, Yusei! I'm really glad I could help you."

"I can't wait to test it out, but we should probably do it in the morning." A flash of lightning illuminates the garage for a split second—rain keeps pounding away. I'll have to jog across the plaza in that. "I'm sure Jack and Crow will warm up to you, Bruno. We're happy to have you stay with us for as long as you need somewhere to crash."

"Really? Thank you!"

I get up to get my sweater from where I put it on the coffee table hours ago—Yusei follows me over. "He's nice," I whisper, examining Bruno as he settles himself on the guys' couch. "He knows a lot of stuff."

"Agreed," Yusei says. "Thank you, too, honestly. I feel… a lot better now."

"Don't thank me, I'm not the genius who figured out the program."

"But you did try your best to keep me afloat this week. I really do owe you."

"Hey, as long as you're okay."

He glances toward the door. "It's really late. Maybe you should stay the night."

"I live across the plaza, Yusei, I can just walk home."

"In the pouring rain," he says flatly.

"I'll run."

"Silvan."

"I'm okay. I'm not going to creep around with somebody downstairs, anyways, I'll disturb him."

"You can hang out upstairs with me. I'm probably just going to take a nap."

" _Yusei_."

Over his shoulder, lightning uncoils its fingers in the sky. I can see the veins of it before it lights up the window, and the sight of that makes my stomach drop.

"...okay," I mutter.

Yusei's room, upstairs, looks a lot like mine. A lot of nothing, some schematics pinned up on the wall, and a desk covered in papers and writing utensils. The two of us sit together on his made bed and I watch the rain bounce off of the window.

"Were you just… talking to him? All day?"

"Yeah," he exhales. "He stayed over last night just because he didn't have anywhere else to go, but Jack and Crow… they're not too fond of him."

"You mentioned that."

"I think they're just… I don't know. Worried, maybe?"

"Can't imagine why," I retort. "It's not like you basically ignored them for the sake of somebody else you met yesterday."

He glares at me.

"Don't look at me like that. They are worried about you. I told you you really should think about having some quality time with them, or something. You guys live together but you still aren't… you know, friends."

"We are friends."

"Apparently not like you used to be."

"Well, that's—unrelated." He lies on his back, head toward the window. "Time just doesn't heal some things. I know you know that."

I lie on my side next to him. "This is new news to me."

"Jack never really apologized for what he did," Yusei admits. "And that's just… Jack. I know he's sorry. But I'd appreciate the acknowledgment. And Crow's just sort of done what he's always done, faded right back into the space he left behind and pretended like he never left."

"You want closure."

"Of course. I feel like I'm living with ghosts half the time."

"We're all ghosts. You're not the same either. I can't have half the conversations I'd like to with my brother. I barely see him because he works so much trying to keep busy and beat his own demons."

"...are you still looking for Kiryu?"

"Of course I am," I breathe. "I pick up the census every time it comes into the library. I go through all of the phone books I can get my hands on. Hell, I've asked around before."

"I'm glad you weren't there when he…" Yusei swallows. "When he died. I've never seen Evan like that."

"Evan still loves him," I murmur. "I'd do anything to give that back to him."

"I wish things could be like they were," he says. "That we could all just jump right back into it. But after all that's happened to us, I know that's impossible. And part of me doesn't want to go back."

"Hm."

"You're right. I am different. I think my mind's definitely worse, but I'm taking on more. I feel more capable despite everything that's trying to eat me alive."

"It's hard to stay afloat," I say. "You're winning half the battle. The other half is actually solving the problem creating the storm."

"That's why I'm so grateful for Bruno. It's like… whatever's out there, watching us, dropped him right in front of me. A gift from above to help me fix myself."

"I'm glad you're feeling better. I've been worried sick about you lately."

"You've done more than enough for me. Between the therapy and the constant reassurance and literally coming by every day to make sure I function… honestly. What would I do without you?"

"Who knows," I say, smiling half to myself.

For a long time, we just sort of lie there. And I watch, upside down, as the rain slithers down the windowpane. When the sky lights up, I squeeze my eyes shut, and Yusei taps me once the lightning is gone.

And, with my head leaned against him, I feel myself falling asleep.

In my dream, I'm standing at a podium. The microphone squeals at me when I lean forward to speak.

"He-Hello."

"Miss Levine," a voice booms from somewhere far away. "Would you please explain to the court what incriminating evidence you have on Mr. Divine?"

"He—He kidnapped me," I gasp. "Tried to turn me into his soldier. I couldn't go outside, the walls were choking me… if—if I disobeyed him, he'd pump electricity into me. If I told anybody it was worse… I would've killed myself to get away from him, I almost did—"

"Too personal, irrelevant."

"It wasn't just me, I know it! People disappeared all the time! He killed others that weren't good enough, you can check the records—"

"Those records were expunged by the Security Maintenance Bureau, Miss."

"I saw his cruelty, I lived it," I say. "It's written into my skin—"

"I'm sorry, Miss, that's not enough. We need tangible proof, it's word against word here. There simply isn't enough. The court finds the defendant not guilty."

I hear something that sounds like a gavel; the walls start to pull in around me, and then there are fingers around my throat.

I can't see him, but I can hear his venomous voice as he hisses, "Poor little Cipher. Better luck next time."

The floor turns into flame and rises to swallow me up.

I gasp in a breath; the fingers aren't on my throat, they're on my face.

"Shh." Yusei moves my hair away from my eyes. "It's okay. It's not real. You're out, Silvan. You're safe."

"I—" I blink away tears. "What time is it?"

"It's okay. Doesn't matter what time it is. Take a second to breathe."

I try to catch my breath. "I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize. You're okay."

"What if I testify," I murmur, "and it isn't enough? What if, even through all of it, they still let him out?"

I see his face, faintly, as he understands. "Silvan."

"What if I'm not enough? What if he comes back?"

"Silvan. He won't."

"What if—"

" _Silvan_." He closes me in his arms. "It's okay. That's not going to happen. You're safe here. They're going to lock him up. If I have to do it myself, he's getting put away. He's not coming for you."

I sit there, breathing him in, and suddenly it's like water rushes out of my ears and I come back to reality.

"Do you… hear shouting?" I whisper.

He pauses. Listens. Then heaves himself to his feet. "Do you want to stay here?"

"Help… help me up."

He pulls me up. Together, we rush downstairs toward the source of the noise.

Jack has a hand twisted in Bruno's shirt and his fist raised; Bruno has his hands in the air and he's blubbering that he's innocent and doesn't believe in violence.

Yusei tears Jack off of him and I stand in front of Bruno as straight as I can; he shrinks a little behind me. "What the hell is going on?" Yusei demands.

"Oh, sorry for disturbing you," Jack retorts. "You're all fucking sleeping and I get down here to find all of our computer screens bright blue and covered with error messages!"

"What?" Yusei and I say at the same time.

I move towards the nearest setup and restart it, wondering what could've possibly been the source of the error, especially at this hour. It's got to be early in the morning, maybe five or six. The home page flickers on, but something's different. There's nothing set up. The background's been reloaded to display the flat black logo of the computer company. The file folder marked "PGRM27.4" isn't in the same place we left it. "...the whole thing's been wiped."

" _What?_!" Yusei says again.

"The—The entire system is gone, somebody wiped the hard drive! The program, everything! It's all gone!"

"It didn't—just crash?" Crow attempts.

"That's not how it works, not unless the hard drive was corrupted, and even then you'd have to fix that yourself," I say, clicking through the settings menu to check for anything not default. "It's clean. No downloaded widgets or search engines or anything. This was a manual wipe."

"Exactly!" Jack exclaims. "This is what we get for letting some random guy stay with us!"

"Why are you blaming Bruno?" I retort. "Why would he wipe the hard drive? He wasted the same seven and a half hours coding with us, he wouldn't willingly flush it all down the drain! Besides, even if he had, why the hell would he still be here?"

Yusei puts his hands on both sides of his head, suddenly on the floor. "Wasted, all right. We didn't think to back it up." He sounds like he's going to start crying.

All that work we did—and it was finally seeming to make Yusei take a turn for the better. This was one fix to one problem, and now we don't even have that anymore.

I shove the computer mouse away from me. The lightbulb in the lamp explodes. Bruno is the only one to flinch. Crow heaves a monumental sigh. "I'll fix it."

"Sorry." I wring my hands and try to quiet myself. If I lose my temper, that's one more problem. I have to… at least _try_ to be calm. Try to be one voice of reason when Jack's whipping up a storm and Yusei's halfway in another mental breakdown. It's one thing that can keep my mind off of where my thoughts just were.

How the hell does a hard drive wipe itself in the middle of the night? None of us wiped it. Not only did we lose the edits, but we lost the entire program. And we'd tested it a lot to get it to where it was when Bruno debugged it.

I move away from the desk and my foot jostles something small on the floor; there's a sound like metal. I should think nothing of it—my first thought is that it's just a nail or something—but I bend over to pick it up. It's a small, twisted up piece of circular metal, like a link on a chain. It's thicker than most chains of its size, though. I'm wondering where it came from; maybe it's a piece of someone's jewelry, but I'm not sure I've seen jewelry with a chain that's this thick. This link has been made sturdy on purpose, I think, and I'm still trying to figure out where it came from when something makes my eyes fall on the front door.

I maneuver up the ramp, the chain link in the palm of my hand, when in see that the chain made from the same link on the door is hanging loosely from where it should be stuck in the lock. It looks like it's been severed, popped with something, which must be why I found one of the links on the floor. The deadbolt is missing completely, like somebody unscrewed it straight from the frame of the door.

"Hey," I say hollowly. "Guys? Did I… please remind me. Did I fix the deadbolt after I broke it earlier this week? I can't remember."

"No, yeah, you fixed it," Crow says. He's brushing the shards of the lightbulb into a pile. "I remember because you made me go out and get the new parts."

"Okay. So. It's broken again."

The room seems to pause; Jack, who's still trying to gang up on Bruno, pivots toward me and makes a face like he wants me to repeat myself.

"So... Somebody broke in?" Crow asks slowly.

"No, Crow, the door's just _broken_ ," Yusei snipes. He's still on the floor.

"So don't blame Bruno," I say. "It's stupid, first of all, and second, this means that someone _did_ deliberately bust in and wiped the hard drive."

"But, come on, who would do that?" Jack retorts.

"We could find out!" Bruno pipes up, probably in an attempt to be helpful. "I bet whoever it was left fingerprints."

"What do we do with fingerprints, genius?" Jack snaps. "It's not like we're a fully equipped police force, we can't scan them or anything."

"But I bet the Bureau could..."

"At this hour? How the hell—"

"It's worth a try," I cut in. "We'd probably have to hack, or something."

Behind me, Crow's examining the keyboard. "Yeah, but how do we figure out if there are prints? Don't we need, like, a blacklight or some shit?"

"Hang on a second," Bruno says, like he's realized something. I find that half of the things he says are like he's come to a realization. He comes towards the desk, too, and very carefully takes something out of the trash can over by the table leg. "Look. Cellophane."

"Cellophane," I repeat. "What about it?"

"It's cellophane from a container of ramen. That's all the three of us had yesterday, but we didn't throw it away here..."

"Oh, come on!" Jack exclaims. "Are you seriously saying that this thief, while deciding to break into our apartment and wipe our hard drive, also suddenly decided that they were hungry and wanted some ramen?"

"Yes," Bruno responds. "And I think that they had to have taken the program. I think that they copied it onto a drive and then wiped the computers—what other reason would they have for running a wipe? Statistically, intellectual tampering is far more likely to occur if someone wants possession of somebody else's knowledge."

"They'd have to have known about it beforehand, then," Yusei pipes up. "Which already narrows it down."

"Excuse me," I retort. "The cellophane?"

"Oh! Right! Look, right here—whoever they were probably had trouble opening the package. And cellophane is thin enough to take on an imprint. There are finger marks all over it."

"Okay... Everything just got a whole lot easier."

"I kind of like your hacking idea, Silvan," he continues. "It seems like the easiest way to identify the culprit."

"Hooray," I say. "I was partly joking, but I'm glad to be useful."

Bruno gets onto the desktop and Yusei sits down at the other monitor. I get the cellophane from Bruno and copy one of the fingerprints down onto a sheet of paper with pencil graphite and a piece of tape that I can use to peel the print off of the cellophane. Yusei scans it on the printer and Bruno saves it as a PDF, then pulls it up while looking for a back door into the Bureau mainframe through their "urgent contact" website.

"Can you even get in?" Jack complains.

"Yes," Bruno says, like he's distracted. "I think my time frame is five minutes... It's a simple system, but it'll take the firewall that long to detect me if I can't get in within the limit. Shouldn't be too difficult."

Something flashes on the computer—it's a picture of a duel field with a few cards face up and a bunch of them face down.

"A simulation duel?" Yusei scoffs. "That's the security measure? You've got to be joking."

"There must be a trick to it," Bruno wonders. "Our Life Points look to be at 1000... The opponent's are at 2300. Five monsters on our opponent's field..."

"Red Gadget, Yellow Gadget, and Green Gadget are three of them," I note. "I have those cards. They work in a circular summons, you have one in your hand and you can get it and the other two on your field."

"Right. The other two look like Ancient Gear Soldier and Stronghold the Moving Fortress. The Gadgets are in Defense Position, while the other two are in Attack. On our field, we have Tragoedia, which gains 600 ATK for each card we have in our hand. We've got six, so that's 3600. The opponent has a face up Spell, Dark Door, that says we're only allowed to attack once per turn. I think we're meant to win in one turn."

"What an easy fix," Crow remarks, bumping Bruno away from the setup. "Check it out. One of the cards in our hand is Shooting Star Bow - Ceal. That lowers a monster's ATK on the other side of the field by 1000. One attack from Tragoedia, and we're good to go!"

As soon as he clicks his way into the strategy he's explained, a card on the other end of the field flips up: Mirror Force. It negates the attack and destroys Tragoedia. The duel scene suddenly resets.

"Wha—wait, what?"

"It obviously isn't that simple," I say.

"Move it," Jack grumbles. "Let me try." He equips a card in his hand, Axe of Despair, to Tragoedia and attacks another Gadget, but Mirror Force flips back up and destroys the monster. The duel scene again resets.

"What the hell?" Crow exclaims. "You knew Mirror Force was there!"

"I was trying to make sure the setup didn't switch!"

"Well, it doesn't!"

"Fighting isn't going to solve anything," Yusei snaps. "We have two minutes."

"Maybe I should try," Bruno says.

Crow and Jack step back, seeming wary. I lean over behind Yusei and rub reassuringly at his shoulders.

"Mirror Force is the main issue," Bruno explains. "Ancient Gear Soldier has an effect that can seal off Traps, which is where Tragoedia comes in. By discarding a Monster card in my hand, I can gain control of an opponent's monster the same LV as my discarded card. The only monster in my hand is Alector, Sovereign of Birds, though—there's a Spell here called Cost Down that can reduce the LV of a monster in my hand by two if I discard a card. So, by discarding the Spell Remove Trap, I can change the LV of the monster and take Ancient Gear Soldier onto my side of the field."

"And then equip Axe of Despair to Ancient Gear Soldier, Equip Shooting Star Bow - Ceal to a Gadget, and wreak havoc, right?" Jack asks.

"It wouldn't be enough. By my math, it leaves the other party with 400 LP. Still, there's Stronghold the Moving Fortress. Due to its effect, it has no power if all three Gadgets are on the field. So, by discarding Shooting Star Bow - Ceal, I can activate Tribute to the Doomed and destroy Green Gadget. Now the Stronghold's ATK is at 0. By equipping Axe of Despair to Ancient Gear Soldier, I can attack and destroy Stronghold the Moving Fortress and win."

He says it so calmly; seconds later a scan starts running on the PDF we uploaded of the fingerprint.

"Huh," I say. "Good work, Bruno."

He beams. "Thanks!"

Moments later, something clicks up on the screen: a match. That was quick. It's a familiar face, one that I've never really liked: the assistant to the Director, Yeager.

"Yeager?" Jack exclaims. "The hell! Why would he break into our place?"

"Only one way to find out," I scoff. "But we do have to find him first."

"Good idea." Yusei goes upstairs and gets his shoes and his jacket, bringing me mine as well. Bruno sort of goes wandering around for his shoes and Jack and Crow meander around until they realize they should get their stuff on, too.

I have no fucking clue what we're looking for—how to locate Yeager—or what this means for a Yusei, now that his first solution is gone. Am I the only one aware of that?

Yusei comes back downstairs, looking wired and ready to leave. Something tells me that, if we manage to get our hands on Yeager, Yusei's going to be pissed. I can't say I won't be, too. Stole our program—and stole the hope of some fucking peace of mind.

I tug my sweater close around me as we head outside into the brisk morning air. At the very least, it's more work. More ways to distract me from my own imminent, nightmarish problems.


	40. No Trouble

I'm the one that figures to file a security report—even though it sits on my desk for four days after the program vanishes.

The worst part was that we didn't even get it back. We wasted a whole day tracking Yeager down at this massive, deserted old factory in the industrial district. We lost him after we set off the perimeter alarm and Yusei had to deactivate the self-regulating AI running the system. Via duel, _as one does_.

Of course filing a report feels like the most logical thing to do. But I've been putting off actually submitting it. I can't decide if it makes sense to actually try to get the Bureau to investigate one of its highest instated employees. Especially considering that the only reason that we knew he stole the program was because Bruno literally hacked into the Bureau mainframe. It's a mess.

Speaking of messes, Yusei and I are doing the opposite of well.

Actually, that's a lie—Yusei is doing much better than I am. It felt like he was going to retreat back into his little shell once we were home from the security system escapade. The program that was going to be his saving grace got stolen—all that time and effort, _wasted_.

It would have been worse if I hadn't read it over a billion times. I almost remembered all of it. Bruno had to help me with the end, but for the most part, I was able to re-transcribe our work. Yusei's made _several_ backups of it and hidden the copies all around the house "just in case." He's been testing it over and over on the rebuilt simulator almost obsessively just to make sure it works. Plus, almost every time I talk to him, he moans and gripes about _why_ Yeager broke into the apartment for the program. How'd Yeager find out about it? Why would he want it? What was he going to do with it? I think if Yusei doesn't figure that out next, his head's finally going to explode.

And, not to downplay his gripes or anything, but my problems feel slightly more imminent. Misty sent Aki the questions that her lawyer has written to ask. Aki has started writing out her responses so she knows exactly what she's going to say. Every time I see her, she asks me if I've made a decision. And the nightmares have crept into my midday naps.

I feel… sluggish. Like something's starting to eat me alive. I don't know what it is, if it's fear or anticipation or guilt, or… or what. But I wish I could sleep because I feel like I need to go to bed for at _least_ twenty years. I've started setting alarms so that I don't sleep any longer than two hours at a time. Every time I sleep longer, somehow I wake up and all sorts of things are broken.

I start trying to gather my thoughts. I rip open the first empty notebook I can find in my room and start trying to document everything I remember, from the brief images of that stormy night at the very beginning of my memories all the way to that day six months ago, when he came back for me and for Aki. Most recollections are blurry, and sometimes my hand shakes and I have to go back and painstakingly make sure the words are legible. I look for the files I have, the ones that Mikage gave me, that Divine kept on me. I draw a diagram of myself and mark where all of my scars are. I know I won't sleep right until all of my facts are straight.

I keep writing everything down in between work and everything else—in between sporadic naps—until I think I finally have everything I remember recorded. My memory is so spotty and dark, it makes me feel better to take the time to try and make a linear map of my ten years in Arcadia. My ten years in captivity.

The WRGP is creeping closer, too, and with it, the pressure to make a decision. The pressure to sort out my thoughts coherently enough that I might be able to share them. I try to think of it like I thought of Yusei. Keep myself afloat, deal with the first problem before I deal with the others.

 _Try_ to get better.

I'm lying on my stomach in the workspace one evening, setting out all of my writings and papers in order, when my phone starts to clatter against the concrete. I pick it up.

 **Yusei Fudo:** _are you awake_

 **Silvan Levine:** _wht kind of dumb question is that_

 **Yusei Fudo:** _are you busy_

 **Silvan Levine:** _am i ever busy at 4 am_

 **Yusei Fudo:** _ok wow grumpy pants_

 **Yusei Fudo:** _jokes aside. can you come outside_

 **Silvan Levine:** _wtf why_

 **Yusei Fudo:** _ill uh explain_

 **Yusei Fudo:** _but bring your keys and a jacket because its cold_

 **Silvan Levine:** _ok dad_

 **Yusei Fudo:** _dont be weird_

I slip my phone into my back pocket, slide a pair of shoes on, and grab my hoodie off of the chair at the desk. My keys, on the kitchen counter, go into my other pocket.

Yusei and Crow are _both_ outside. Yusei looks dressed for the day, meanwhile, Crow's hair is hanging in his face and he's got his work jacket and boots on over his pajamas.

Crow gives a little wave and says, "Morning."

"I guess? What's going on?"

Yusei, half smiling, says, "So Jack got arrested."

I have to pause to process that. "...I'm sorry, _what_?"

"Yusei thinks it's _funny_ ," Crow retorts, "but I'm not about Bureau people banging on the door and waking me up at the ass crack of dawn."

"I think it's _ironic_ ," Yusei clarifies. "Anyways, we have to go get him."

"Why the hell did he get arrested?"

"We don't know yet, but it's definitely got to be a misunderstanding. Jack can be a prick, but he's not a criminal."

"Great assumption."

"Anyways, coming with us?"

"Why do I have to come?"

"I'm sorry, I thought you said you weren't busy," he retorts.

"I changed my mind, I'm occupied doing everything but going somewhere."

"You're already outside, just come with us. I'll drive."

"And you have to buy me a soda."

He rolls his eyes. "Fine. Let's go."

I hop on the back of Yusei's duel runner and hold tight to him. I've ridden with him before, but every time it feels almost brand new. Only rarely do I just get to come along for the ride.

We head to the Bureau Headquarters on the western coastline, and it dawns on me what happened the last time I was there. When we arrive, Crow and Yusei very silently take the stairs with me. We're met in a holding block by Mikage.

"Hello, everyone," she says.

"Hi," Yusei, Crow, and I say at the same time.

"Where is he?" I ask.

Mikage points, toward where Ushio is standing; he's glaring down through glass paneling that ceilings (what I assume is) Jack's holding cell. He turns and goes, "Oh, hey, you guys."

"'Hey, you guys.' That's a little anticlimactic," I retort.

"This is a misunderstanding, isn't it?" Crow asks.

Ushio looks away. "Uh..."

"We thought so, too," Mikage says. She clicks a little remote and a screen behind her starts to boot up. "We started getting reports, _duelists_ , saying that Jack Atlas had challenged them to a turbo duel and then tried to run them off of the road. We brushed them off at first, until we caught _this_ security footage from a camera positioned above highway eight."

The monitor starts playing a very high resolution video of Jack's duel runner ramming into some other duel runner; he doesn't seem to stop until the other rider finally loses control and goes flying. I hear Yusei and Crow breathe a collective sigh.

"We've caught three other instances like these in the past week," Ushio says.

"...oh," Crow mutters.

"What do you mean, _'oh_?'" Mikage demands.

"Well... The timing kind of checks out."

"Huh?"

"Last week?" I ask. "Was this when he threw that hissy fit?"

"Beginning of last week, we were out trying to work on WRGP stuff," Yusei groans, rubbing between his eyes. "Training and whatnot."

 _Right_. I'd told Yusei he had to get out of the house, but all he'd wanted to do was more work, so I'd roped Crow and Jack in and the three of them had tried putting together some card strategies.

"Jack threw a hissy fit about a card we wanted him to play, said he didn't need anyone, and pretty much bailed. He came back when he decided he really didn't have any other place to crash."

"And he starts taking his dickery out on innocent people?" Crow exclaims. He rushes past Ushio, towards the glass ceiling of Jack's cell. "The _hell_?!"

Jack's voice wafts up from below. "I swear it wasn't me!"

"Oh, and that tape proves you're not guilty? That was definitely your duel runner smacking that poor guy around!"

"I. Didn't. Do. It!"

"Tone it down, Crow," I say. "I'm sure there's… a reasonable explanation!"

"Reasonable?" Yusei gives me a sideways glance. "I hate to disagree with you, Silvan, but I built that duel runner with my own two hands. There's only one like it."

"Come on, why is Silvan the only one backing me up here? I thought you were all my friends! I didn't do what I didn't do!"

"What, you're just going to keep denying it?" Crow crosses his arms. "You're still too good for all of us, so you're going to just try to kill our team altogether? Think you're so great, you're just gonna screw us all over like the self absorbed prick you are?"

"Crow," I begin, raising my voice.

"Are you shitting me?!" Jack raises his voice, too. "Get your ass down here and say that to my face!"

"I'd love to, but you seem a little preoccupied, you know, being in jail and all!"

" _Crow_!" I shout. Yusei grabs him by the arm and yanks him away from the glass. A couple of officers have appeared to drag Jack, literally kicking and screaming, into a different area where no one will have to listen to him.

We sort of just awkwardly drop conversation from there, and I'm following Yusei as he shoves Crow back the way we came. "That was uncalled for."

Crow doesn't say anything.

"We can't really do anything right now," I mutter. "Not until there's proof that he didn't do it."

"Silvan," Yusei says gently, "you saw that tape too. What proof is there?"

"You're not telling me that you believe he's guilty, are you?"

"I don't want to believe it. It just doesn't seem like something Jack would do, argument or not, but they have a video of a guy that looks like him on a duel runner that looks like his. There's only one Wheel of Fortune. How could it not have been him?"

"It just feels... Wrong."

"I know."

"So what do we do?" I ask. "Hm? Nothing? Go home and wait for them to send him to the Detention Center?"

"Let me think, please," Yusei says. It's the _way_ he says it that makes me hold my tongue. He knows as well as I do how strange this sounds, despite the 'proof'.

"...where's Bruno?" I say, turning toward Crow.

"Left him at home. I think he went right back to sleep when we shut all the lights off."

"Smart boy."

"It's where I wish I was, man."

We hang around the Bureau building for another hour, maybe. Why, I don't know. I don't think Jack's even here anymore. His cell's empty, who says they didn't move him somewhere offsite?

The sun's up by the time we figure that nobody else is going to talk to us, since I guess Mikage and Ushio went to follow Jack. We can't really do anything else but go home. Yusei's still in a thinking mood, so I go back to my place. And I guess Evan has an early shift, so I'm by myself. Alone with my thoughts. As usual.

I lie down on my back on the floor, staring at the rafters, switching back and forth between all of the things I have to think about. Divine. Jack. The trial. My friend. Do I do it? He couldn't have run all those duelists off of the road.

I think I end up halfway in a nap at some point, because I open my eyes to the sound of my phone buzzing. I fumble for it. "Hello?"

" _Are you anywhere near a television_?" Yusei's voice asks.

I rub the sleep from my eyes. "Yeah, why?"

" _Turn on the news._ "

"Which channel?"

" _Any. I don't think they'll be different._ "

Our television is on a little table far enough away from the couch, practically against the back wall, that I could lie on my stomach to watch it and not have to crane my neck up to look at the screen. I grab the remote on top of the cable box and switch it on, to the first news channel that I see on the guide listing.

"... _no telling of the former champion's whereabouts. Sources say that Atlas was arrested this morning in connection with several so-called 'road rage' incidents reported directly to the Security Maintenance Bureau. Highway eight will be closed off until the investigation is complete."_

"Whaaaaaaat the fuck," I breathe into the receiver.

" _Apparently Jack busted himself out_ ," Yusei says, " _and now he's just missing._ "

"Missing? But what the hell happened on highway eight?"

" _A barrier got shattered. They think it was Jack, but all the video feed they tried to take from the highway cameras is corrupted._ "

"A—A barrier, like… he…"

" _Yeah. They think he cracked a barrier, fell through, and possibly drowned._ "

I can hear how solemn his voice gets at 'drowned'. No matter their past, this is bad. And serious. It's hard to believe that Jack could die, so much so that I can't find myself feeling much at the suggestion that he has, but… It still sends something of a chill through my bones.

"He's not dead. You know he can't be."

" _I don't think so. I would have felt it._ "

"I have to believe you all would have."

" _Me too._ " He pauses. " _I really don't have any ideas. This is the first time anything like this has happened to us."_

"I don't know what to tell you. You _did_ say that those videos were enough proof to get him arrested."

" _I know I did, because that's some pretty solid proof. I already said. There's only one Wheel of Fortune. But now that I'm thinking about it this much, it feels so… wrong._ "

"I know."

" _Like I said! Jack can be a prick, but he's not a criminal. And he's done a lot of dumb shit, but he's not that kind of duelist. He doesn't play dirty._ "

"Until we can find proof of that beyond his word, I don't know how to clear his name." Or even figure out where he could be.

" _I don't know either. I'm going to think on it some more and see if I can figure out any possible solutions, but…_ "

"I know," I repeat. "It's all fucked. Just keep me in the loop, okay? I'll see what I can do, too."

" _All right. And, while you're at it, take a nap please._ "

"You just woke me up from a nap."

" _Oh, yikes. Bye then._ "

I find it in me to laugh a little bit as the line goes dead. The hint of happiness fades away, though, when I realize that they're still talking about Jack on the TV and I have to turn it off.

The clock tells me that I've been sleeping for four hours—plenty of time for Jack to make a grand escape and an even grander disappearance. But where could he have gone?

And Evan's not around for me to ask his opinion, either, but I'm not quite sure he'd care. He still has almost no love for Jack despite what we all went through. I think, like Yusei, he's still stoutly waiting for something like an apology.

I have to be moving to think straight, so I start pacing. The timing, like Crow said, does check out. Doesn't it? Jack got upset and was AWOL for the rest of that day. Maybe… eighteen hours? He stormed off at two-ish and was back by eight the next morning. But did all of the attacks happen in that time?

Mikage said four instances. All on highway eight; but when, exactly? Jack could have an alibi, but that could mean something a little more ominous: there's someone out there pretending to be him.

It all feels like a stretch, though, when I think on it more. Who would go through all that effort to impersonate him? Build a fake Wheel of Fortune? Who'd be fanatic enough to build it _right_?

My phone starts buzzing again, so I pick up, expecting it to be Yusei.

" _Are you busy?_ "

"Carly!" I don't know why I didn't think of her—of course she'd be the first one to start investigating this. "No, I'm not. I'm not doing anything."

" _Great. Did you hear about Jack?_ "

"Unfortunately."

" _Even greater! You don't think he's guilty, do you?_ "

"I've seen the footage," I say. "All of the evidence does point to him. But it's definitely all wrong. It has to be—"

" _Okay, good, we're on the same page! Meet me at the card shop in Daimon. I've been at this for a few hours and I think I found something._ "

Leave it to Carly to be the most effective sleuth. But I'm glad she called me, because I don't want to be stuck in the house, _alone_ , thinking.

The trip is short and there's only one card shop in Daimon, so that's where I go. Coming back here by myself is… something. I drive by the coffee shop on the corner I used to go to. The tattoo parlor is a block to my right. I haven't been remotely this close to Arcadia since I left it behind. That ground feels hallowed, and I don't know what it would do to me to step foot upon it again.

Seeing Carly is an immediate lift to my mood. She's standing outside the card shop, fiddling with her camera, and beams when she sees me. "Hey!"

"Hi," I say wearily. "Thanks for calling me. The other guys don't know what to do, and neither do I, so I'm glad you have an idea."

"Like I'm going to let my boyfriend warm a prison cell for more than a few hours," Carly scoffs. "Here, c'mon."

I trail after her into the card shop, up to the counter where there's a girl and a guy sitting and adjusting Duel Monster figurines in a line. Carly smacks her hands down into the counter, startling both of the workers, and says, "Where's that thing you showed me?"

The guy scrambles for a tablet and shows us a photograph of two Wheels of Fortune. _Two_ Jacks.

"Apparently someone passing by caught this," Carly tells me, "when Jack busted out of jail."

"Is it photoshop?" I ask.

"No, man, this is the real deal!" The guy at the counter attempts.

"From _who,_ " I say flatly.

He puts his hands up. "Hey, hey, I don't give away my sources! But I promise you it's no fake!"

Seems sketchy, that a photograph like that would circulate this fast. And, seemingly, _solely_ to a shop staff. "Give me the file."

"Wh—What?"

"Let me see it on a laptop."

"Hey, come on, I don't—"

The fluorescent light over the counter shoots off sparks as one of the plates over the filament bulb cracks. The lady at the counter screams.

"I'm not fucking around," I say. "Open that on a computer."

With shaking hands, he fumbles with the desktop next to the cash register. Carly looks at me, face pale. "What… Silvan, what are you…"

"Just trust me. I want to make sure."

Why would someone photoshop a second Jack into a photograph? I can't think of a reason. I can't even think of a reason a _troll_ would circulate a photograph like that.

The guy swivels the monitor toward me. "Here, okay?"

"Keyboard."

He plops it down in front of me. I open up the browser.

"What are you doing?" Carly squeaks.

"If I can extract the metadata, I can see if it's an altered image. I can tell if it's real."

" _Oh_!"

"But…" The girl behind the counter peeks out from behind the guy. "That's impossible."

"No offense, but you guys run a card shop and I don't trust that you aren't network trolls. If you know enough about programming to know that it's unlikely that you'd find changed metadata _if_ the patch job's done well enough, you'd probably cover your tracks. But usually trolls aren't that thorough."

Carly makes some awkward chatter with the store clerks while I comb through the image data. Usually photo editors leave some sort of signature within image metadata to prevent theft, or as some type of general imprint. But I can't find anything. And the photo itself is too strange to ignore, so…

"I'm forced to believe you, I guess," I say. "I can't find anything weird. And the fact that a photo like that exists at all, fan theories or not…"

Carly nods at me. "I thought it was weird, too."

I turn to the clerks before we leave. "Sorry about your light." Outside of the shop, I wait for a second before I say, "Any more evidence, Carly?"

"I, um... Actually don't have that much. The only other lead I have is down the highway Jack was last seen on. A section of it is barred off because the barrier got smashed."

"Okay, great, let's head there now."

" _What_?" she protests. "But that's a crime scene!"

"Do I look like I care?"

Carly nods, her mouth a thin line. "Okay that's fair."

"We can take my duel runner. It'll be quicker and a little less conspicuous than your coupe. I have a spare helmet."

It takes me a little bit, but I coax Carly onto the back of my runner and she leads me to where the highway's been blocked off. Oddly enough, there aren't a lot of Bureau people present. They must've mostly finished their investigation. Which could be good or horrible. Either way, it's easy to get onto the other side of the meager blockade and to the crash site: one of the glass, halfpipe-style barricades they have reaching over the sound. I take a look at the cracks along the hole in the glass while Carly starts to snap photos.

The glass looks pretty thick, thick enough to withstand being bumped against or to even get something heavy like a duel runner thrown at it. I could probably crack this glass if I tried, but I'd probably end up with more than a bloody nose.

Down below, there's a rocky outcropping that looks like the top of a mountain protruding up out of the sound.

Carly sees me eyeing the distance between us and the rock, then grabs my arm. "Oooooh no. You're not thinking of—"

" _Jumping_?" I say. "I mean, yeah. "

"Wait, _what_?"

"How else do you expect me to get down there?" I peel my jacket off and put my hand against the barrier to test its thickness. Whatever broke it had to have been _really_ hard.

I take a breath, shake my hair out of my face, and jump. For two seconds, I'm in free air, my heart in my throat, and then a rush of icy water swallows me up. I breathe out bubbles and kick to the surface, peeking my head above the waves. Teaching myself to swim was among the first things I wanted to do after the Dark Signers. It's yet another form of freedom.

I pull myself up onto the rocks, shaking the biting cold water out of my hair and squeezing it out of my soaked tee shirt. The rock's bigger than it looked from up above on the highway; it stretches a little underneath the shadow of the bridge. I walk circles around it, seeing nothing, until I finally become aware of my own shivering.

I'm about to go back up when I see something wedged in the rocks; I yank it out of the fissure and wipe the moisture away from it. It's one of Jack's cards, Trust Guardian. Incidentally, it's the same card he refused to use when he was arguing with Crow and Yusei about WRGP strategies.

It's probably for nothing, but I call, "Jack?" off toward the shady part of the rock that drops off into the water beneath the highway.

I get no response, obviously. I slip the card into my back pocket and move around to the sunnier side of the rock, trying to judge the distance between myself and the jump from the shattered barrier.

I stare down at my hands, hoping that this works so that I don't have to swim home, and concentrate hard as I Waste myself up toward Carly.

Carly has her hands pressed over her mouth, and she's making this barely audible screaming noise as she watches me drift back up toward her. She grabs onto me and yanks me back toward the ground. "Wh–Why did you do that?! Are you okay, are you—"

"I'm okay!" I say, dabbing blood away from my nose. My stomach feels light. Like adrenaline that hasn't left. "Heights don't bother me, and I wanted to get down there. I found this." I show her Jack's card. "One of Jack's."

"I think… maybe I have a theory?" she responds. "The photo, the card that was his… What if Jack's dueling this other version of himself, trying to clear his name, when he gets knocked into the barrier, it breaks, and he goes down?"

"Oh boy, but that would mean he's dead."

Her eyes get really wide, and her voice gets really soft. It makes me immediately regret my suggestion. "Maybe… Maybe he's hiding?"

"Ahh… I don't know." The possibility of something bad happening to Jack at all makes me almost sick to my stomach.

After that, there's really nothing to do but take Carly back to the card shop. She says that she'll go looking for more information and then leaves in a tiny two-passenger car. I take a ride around the entire city, through Satellite and back, looking for any sign of Jack. I still get nothing but the card, which is somehow only more concerning.

The sun's arching downward, toward the western horizon, by the time I get back home. I feel heavy and useless; I did a lot of traveling around today, and almost no finding. When I shove open the garage door, I can smell something—maybe fish—cooking on the stove.

"Where've you been all day?" Evan calls when he sees me.

"Looking," I say. "For Jack."

He makes a face. "I saw something on the news about that. I thought it was just tabloid bullshit."

"Nope. I was out of the house early as hell this morning because the Bureau dragged him in. He busted out and supposedly crashed. Nobody knows where he is."

Evan doesn't say anything. He just sighs and shakes his head. I don't know what he's thinking. Or, certainly, if he even cares.

Then he picks something up off of the kitchen island and waves it in the air. "So, I know this is off topic. But when were you going to tell me about this?"

"What's— _oh_."

He sets it back down. It's my notebook, stuffed with all my papers. The one I've been writing in for the past week. I totally forgot about it. I must have left it on the floor when I left this morning.

"You're thinking about it, aren't you?" he says softly.

"It's _all_ I've been thinking about," I murmur. "I can't sleep, I can't function without—"

"I've noticed."

I swallow. "I just. I have so many things I'm trying to figure out. What if I'm the only one that has the evidence to put him away? That, then, would make me responsible for his death… But… But, also, what if it's not enough? What if they don't think any of it is relevant? What if—"

"So," he interrupts, his voice that same soft sound, "you're getting all of your facts straight."

"...yeah."

"Your memory isn't any better."

"It's getting worse," I admit. "I forget more and more every day. Every time I try to think of something, it's just information. Numbers or plots to plays or color theory or or or— _bullshit_. Nothing I care about. Nothing that matters."

"And… Dr. Blythe hasn't been able to do anything about it."

"She's a pediatrician, not a neuroscientist. And she already does enough for me with all of the psychic research." I wring my hands as I look at the book on the kitchen island. "I just… wanted it written down before I lose it."

He's nodding. He picks the book up and starts slowly across the room to me, until he hits the couch and pats the spot next to him. I cross obediently to him and sink down next to him, underneath the stretch of his broad arm.

"You don't want to testify," Evan begins softly, "because you don't want him to die."

I shake my head.

"You don't think that's justice. Even though he killed people, he shouldn't die."

"No. He doesn't deserve that. It's too easy. He should live with what he did. Live and suffer and rot."

"You've told me before he's not the guilty type."

"No," I say. "But he is the extravagant type. And I _relish_ the thought of him rotting in a bare prison cell. Dying, then, of nothing but old age."

"Ever thought that death could be something he's afraid of? It could be the best punishment he could get."

"I don't know."

"About what?" he asks, inclining his head.

"...anything," I say. "I know I should. I could be a key witness. I… I lived it all. But… What if it's not enough? What if none of it is relevant enough?"

"Silvan, you're a living, breathing example of everything evil he's done. Of course you're relevant. And, who knows? Maybe your greatest revenge could be being the person to prove him guilty."

I brush my hands off on my jeans. "Maybe. I don't know. I really should go update Crow and Yusei on the Jack search."

Evan sighs. "I don't know what Jack's gotten himself into, but I doubt it's anything good. And I hate to be insensitive, but I think you have worse things to worry about."

"He's better. You know he's better now."

My brother shakes his head. "An apology would be nice, though."

I sigh through my nose as I stand up. "Maybe you should talk to Yusei about that. You've got some matching sentiments."

He rubs between his eyes. "Yeah. I figured."

"I'll keep you updated," I say. "Do you have another shift tonight?"

"No. I'm gonna eat and go to bed early."

"That's a good plan."

He nods.

"Silvan?" he says to me when I'm up at the door. I turn back toward him. "Please try to sleep tonight."

"...I'll try," I say.

I can feel Jack's card in my back pocket like a weight on my way across the plaza. The door's open, but I have to knock just out of habit. Bruno comes to open it for me.

"Hi Silvan!"

"Hey," I say. "Anyone else home?"

"Just me and Yusei." He frowns. "Are you looking for Jack, too?"

"Yeah…"

"It's worrying."

"Yeah," I repeat. "Do you have any ideas what could have happened, Mr. Einstein?"

Bruno beams. "Einstein? What a compliment. I promise if I'd thought of anything, I'd probably tell Yusei. He's been pacing back and forth for hours."

"Ah, that sucks."

"Yeah." He moves out of the way of the door for me. "Come on in, I'm sure he'd be happy to have somebody to talk to."

I duck under Bruno's arm and head down toward the workspace. Yusei's sitting at the desk, watching a newsreel on the computer, leg bouncing, biting the nail off of his pinky finger.

"Don't do that, you'll mess up your hands," I say, smacking his arm.

He looks over his shoulder at me. "Have you seen my hands? They're already past the point of no return."

"Still."

He sighs through his nose. "How are you?"

"I went out with Carly," I say. "Looked for Jack."

"I'm guessing you had about as much luck as I've had trying to come up with a good alibi for him."

"Actually," I say, reaching for the card, "I had more luck than you might think."

When I slide the card in front of him, he starts. "Where… did you find this?"

"The crash site. Carly and I went down to look at it. It was wedged in the rocks."

Yusei weighs it in his hands. "What does it mean that it was there?"

"I don't know," I say. "This sounds crazy, but… hear me out."

"Okay."

"What if there's an impostor involved?"

He doesn't say anything.

"It sounds crazy," I continue, "but Jack was pretty insistent that he didn't do this. He was only gone for a day or so last week. Three in a night could be impossible, if we had the time frame of the incidents."

"There's only one Wheel of Fortune," is all he says.

"You keep saying that," I say, "but it makes sense that someone would try to masquerade as him. Frame him. Plus… I think there's photo evidence."

He squints at me. " _What_?"

"Carly found some people that had this photograph of two Jacks on highway eight."

"Photoshop."

"I checked the metadata."

"That… still doesn't prove anything."

"It's a theory. And I don't think it's impossible."

"Even if it was possible, what's the motive? Who would do that? Who would _want_ to?"

"I… don't know. But it's all I think we have to go on."

He sighs and continues to fiddle with the card.

"...where's Crow?"

"Work."

"And you're not?"

"I just had to think."

"Been a while since you've _wanted_ to do that."

"Yeah." He rubs between his eyes. "I'm feeling better, that's something."

"Mmhm. Got all of your hidden zip drives and everything."

He smiles a little. "Yeah. The only problem we have now is figuring out how to implement the program upgrade. I don't have the tech for that."

"We'll figure something out." I rub his shoulder. "I think we should call Mikage. I don't know what to do about Jack, but… maybe we can check the dates and times of the footage. See if the double thing is a good theory to have."

Yusei sighs. "I guess."

The door flies open and hits the wall so fast that I jump. It's Carly, hunched over and trying to catch her breath. "Are you busy?"

"What is it?" I ask.

"Jack's been spotted again."

"Where?" Yusei demands.

I bolt out the door to get to my apartment before I can even hear the answer. Crow's outside, pulling his duel runner around toward the garage, and he cranes his neck to watch me run past him. I don't have time to acknowledge anything in my empty front room once I get inside, I just start up my duel runner and rush back out into the square.

Yusei comes outside with Crow, who must be up to speed on the situation. Carly, who's nowhere to be seen, probably ran off to get her coupe. Then Yusei takes the lead, heading down through the thoroughfare and to the quickest route we can take to get to highway eight.

A familiar white duel runner is booking it down the lane in front of us, and there's a Bureau duel runner tailing it.

The Bureau runner gets up on the Wheel of Fortune's back bumper until the driver slams on the breaks, rams back-end first into the duel runner, and speeds back up to put quite a few feet between them and the Security.

Yusei, to my left, shouts, "Okay, that's not Jack!"

"Changing your tune?" I call.

"Jack speeds up and outruns, he doesn't slow down and make things physical!"

"So get the Security's attention!"

"Hey!" Yusei calls to the officer. "That's not the actual Jack!"

The Security is still trying to regain his bearings. "What do you mean? Of course it is!"

"No, it isn't!" I exclaim. "Just take our word for it!"

Crow, Yusei, and I speed up to overtake the double. I come in to their right, Crow on their left, Yusei flanking, and sure enough… They look like Jack. Their face and everything.

"Nice costume!" I say.

The Jack copy smirks in a very Jack-esque fashion.

"Hey, dumbass! Whoever you are, you're not our Jack!" Crow calls. "Sure, Jack can be arrogant and selfish and he always wastes money and eats my food, but he's my friend and I know him—you're nothing like him! He doesn't screw people over like you're trying to! Cuz of you, I said a lot of really shitty things that I didn't mean and I can't really take back! I can't exactly say sorry, but the least I can do for him is kick your ass!"

"Oh, please, give it a try!" The impostor Jack says. Gods, they even sound like Jack.

The other Jack punches his breaks and rams into Crow, whose duel runner goes flying. I throw out my hand, Wasting _hard_ in the attempt to catch him, and as soon as I pull back a little to try and help more, the other Jack switches gears and sprays thick gray smoke at Yusei, who begins to spin out of control. Now, I'm the only one still keeping up with the fake Jack, one hand out to try and help two of my friends.

Fake Jack pulls back a little so that he's matching my speed. "Since you're interested in fucking with duelists, I don't know why you haven't gone after me yet!"

"Go fuck _yourself_!" I shout, throwing out my other hand. I Waste at him as hard as I can. Something inside me feels like it's ripping. I have to pull to a stop to keep myself from crashing. The Wheel of Fortune surges up the road, into the distance. The Bureau officer from before shoots past me.

Yusei, who I guess regained control of his duel runner, comes up beside me. "Are you okay?"

"I-I'm fine." I have to blink a few times to make my eyes focus, and I'm bleeding from both nostrils. "I'll be fine."

He reaches a hand toward me, eyebrows crinkled together. "Silvan, I've never seen you this bad."

"I'll be okay! Is Crow…?"

"He's fine—"

"Come on, then, we have to keep following."

I punch the gas before anyone can start arguing with me makes us lose Jack's impersonator. Crow and Yusei catch up to me quickly, and together we cross out of the tunnel. It doesn't take us long to catch up to the fake Jack and the Bureau officer, who are ramming each other's duel runners again.

Suddenly a second Wheel of Fortune dives onto the highway, knocking the other Jack into a spin.

Is that… real Jack? Our Jack?

"I thought you'd never show your face again!" The other Jack calls.

"You thought wrong! Why the _hell_ are you impersonating me?"

"Please, you're the impostor! The real Jack Atlas is a champion, not a chump who relies on a bunch of other duelists! They're just chains that hold you down!"

"We'll see about that!" Jack pulls back to where we are. "Sorry about everything, you guys!"

"Oh, just shut up and kick his ass," I call. "By the way, this is yours!" I retrieve the card I found from my pocket and hand it to him across the gap between our duel runners. He puts it into his deck and shuffles it, then pulls ahead to confront his copy.

Down on my duel screen, I can see a duel in progress registering. Jack versus Jack.

The Jack further up the road, the one that drives more aggressively, draws first. "I summon Archfiend Interceptor in Attack Position! Then I place one card face down and end my turn!"

Do they have the same cards, I wonder? That would mean… Red Demons Dragon, too?

Our Jack draws for his turn. "Since monsters exist only on my opponent's side of the field, I can summon Vice Dragon! Next, from my hand, I summon Trust Guardian!"

I see Yusei shake his head; in exasperation, probably.

"Now I tune Vice Dragon with Trust Guardian to Synchro Summon the _true_ Red Demons Dragon!"

It spreads its ravaged black wings across the sky and trails behind the real Wheel of Fortune. The curved horns along its head catch the fading sunlight and cast a demon's shadow. I've seen it in play a handful of times; Jack's ace, and his Signer Dragon.

"Red Demons Dragon, attack Archfiend Interceptor!"

"You do that," the other Jack scoffs. "Due to its special ability, I deal you 500 points in damage!"

"Whatever! I still destroy your monster and deal you damage!"

The heat of the fire from both attacks coils around us. I lift my hand, Internalizing what I can reach. It dawns on me how that barrier on the highway must have broken: something turned the battle damage taken in this duel to something real and tangible.

On my duel screen, the impostor's LP falls to 2400 and Jack sets a card face down. Their Speed Counters jump up to 2 upon the beginning of the impostor's turn.

"Now it's time to show you how a real champion does it! When my opponent has monsters, but I don't, I can summon Vice Dragon!"

It's the same move. They do have the same deck, they _must._

"Next, I summon Flare Resonator! With this, I can tune up Vice Dragon and turn him into my very own Red Demons Dragon!"

The light of the summon swallows up our duel runners, but what comes out of it isn't exactly Red Demons Dragon. It's more like a _Purple_ Demons Dragon; obviously a fake, and more than enough proof that someone... Or _something_ has been framing Jack.

"Because I used Flare Resonator as Synchro Material, he gets a 300 point boost in ATK! Destroy this pitiful creature, my true beast!"

At 3300 to 3000, Jack only takes the 300 in damage, though he loses Red Demons. Then he activates an effect. "Since I used Trust Guardian as Synchro Material, I can subtract 400 ATK from my Red Demons Dragon to keep it on the field!"

Jack's dragon is here to stay, and that moves the imposter to place a card face down and turn over the field.

The real Jack draws, and then he points outward. "Attack, Red Demons Dragon!"

"Oh, please, your fool of a monster is too weak to stand against mine!"

"Not exactly!" Jack tosses over a face down. "I activate Assault Spirits! By discarding a monster in my hand, I can use this card to transfer the ATK of the monster I discarded to a monster on my field that's in the middle of an attack! Through discarding Twin-Shield Defender from my hand, I can up the stakes by 700 ATK!"

It shows on my duel screen that both dragons are at 3300. Attacking here should lead to a double KO, but I see what he's doing instead.

"By activating the effect of Trust Guardian again, I can keep Red Demons around!"

The other Jack takes no damage, but now he's out his copycat dragon.

"Then, I place a card face down to end my turn!"

At this point, Crow's caught up to us. He looks like he wants to speak, but he also looks like he doesn't want to shout over the wind. I wonder what he's thinking of saying, especially after the outburst he had at Jack when he was arrested.

"I thought you'd never be done!" The other Jack spins his duel runner to face the rest of us; now he's driving backwards. "Get ready, because this will be my ultimate play!"

Speed Counters are up to four this turn. The opposite Jack draws.

"When my enemy controls monster but I don't, I can summon Big Piece Golem in Attack Position! Next, I activate the Speed Spell - Angel Baton! By sending a card in my hand to the Grave, I can draw two cards! Then, I play Powerful Rebirth; this allows me to summon Small Piece Golem from my Graveyard while raising its LV by one! And, well, why not activate their effects and have Middle Piece Golem while we're at it!"

All three Golems... What's he doing?

"Next, by targeting one of the traps in your Grave, I can summon Trap Eater! By tuning LV one Trap Eater with LV seven Small Piece Golem, I can welcome back Red Demons Dragon!"

 _Another_ Red Demons Dragon? This one is yellow, so, it's another fake, but still... How does someone copy a one-of-a-kind card? _Twice_?

"Since I performed a successful Synchro Summon, I can also summon Synchro Magnet to tune up Big Piece Golem and summon another Red Demons Dragon!"

This one's... Blue. They're the same monster, but none of them are real. How many does he have?

"Why not a third one? By activating Reincarnation Ring, I can tribute Medium Piece Golem and resurrect a monster from the Grave that's double its LV!"

Now it's three Demons Dragons—Purple, Blue, and Yellow—on Jack's one. It's down to, what, 2200 ATK because of how many times Jack's used Trust Guardian's effect?

The false Jack sends all three of his Red Demons Dragons to attack real Jack, who bears it until his Life Points are down to 1200 and Red Demons Dragon's ATK has been reduced to 1400. The third Dragon is about to take Jack out completely when he activates Ray of Hope—it's a trap that halves battle damage. On my duel screen, he lowers Red Demons Dragon's ATK to save it again and the grand total is an LP of 400 and a Synchro with 1000 ATK. Due to Ray of Hope, he's also allowed to summon a LV one monster from his hand—Dark Bug.

That photo, back in the shop… it was real, and these two have dueled before, obviously. But Jack must have lost last time. And he's almost at that point again.

"All right!" Jack calls. "I summon Majestic Dragon in Attack Position! Then, I tune it with Red Demons Dragon and Dark Bug in order to Synchro Summon something you would never be able to copy! Saver Demons Dragon!"

It's like Yusei's Majestic Star Dragon—the summon he made to defeat Goodwin all that time ago. The Crimson Dragon's sigil flashes once across Jack's shoulder blades before the light returns to me and he activates Saver Demons Dragon's special effect.

Something warms the tips of my fingers.

"I can negate the effects of every other monster on the field, then choose one of your monsters and steal all of its ATK to add to my own dragon!"

Just like that, Jack's got a dragon with 7000 ATK, which he sends to take down the Red Demons Dragon at 0 ATK. Yusei, Jack, Crow, and I skid to a stop to avoid getting caught in the molten hot circle of light surrounding the fake Jack. The physical damage makes the copy of Jack and his duel runner disintegrate, but not before exposing a shiny metal face.

A robot. A Riding Roid.

We stop not far away from the center of the blast and a bright light takes everything away. Like there was never an evil copy of Jack at all. We all dismount our duel runners to listen to the silence and wonder if it's the end—even the Bureau officer, who caught up to us at last, stops and takes in the quiet.

Crow and Yusei gather next to Jack, but he sort of ignores them and makes a beeline for me. Jack pulls me up in a hug and sort of swings me around like a rag doll before exclaiming to the others, "You think I'm going to let you two jokers off so easily? Silvan was the only one to believe me!"

"Don't swing me, I don't feel good," I manage. He sets me down and I dab at the blood dried down my face. "I sure am glad Carly didn't catch up to us, her in that little car trying to keep out of the duel collateral would have been—"

"Awful? Probably."

"Jack," Crow tries, sounding disgruntled. "I really am sorry, man."

"I… know." Jack frowns. "But I think I deserved that." He angles toward Yusei, who has that familiar fearful look on his face. "Don't look at me like that. You can't crumble right now. Not again. You saw all the things I did, and I know you know what it means. It's good news and bad news, for sure."

"What's the bad news?" I say warily.

"That Yusei was right," Jack says. "That this is all bigger than we thought it was. The Ghost was a robot, too. We don't know if that Lucciano kid was."

I swallow. "And the good news?"

Jack nods toward Yusei. "It's not just you involved in this. The twins too. And now me. You're _definitely_ not fighting this fight alone."

Yusei takes a breath and says, "I'm glad you're all right and not an idiot who runs people off of the road."

"Thanks, pal."

"Now, unless anyone has any objections," Yusei continues, "I need a nap and some ibuprofen."


	41. A Far-Off Dream

_**A/N: HELLO MY APOLOGIES FOR THE ACCIDENTAL HIATUS, HOPEFULLY I'M BACK FOR A WHILE NOW**_

* * *

"So you're doing it."

"...yeah. I can't think of any other solution."

"Silvan, that's…" Aki shakes her head and breathes in the heat off of her tea. "I'm with you all the way. You know I am. I know how hard this has been for you."

"I have to do it," I say. "My experiences, where I stand… It'll win the case. If Misty doesn't win, he'll get his parole. And we'll have to start looking over our shoulders again."

"If he came for us, I'd kill him myself," Aki says. "Proven guilty or not. I'm not going to lie down and take this anymore."

"I figured you wouldn't…"

"Remember what you told me after we got out." She leans forward and presses her hand over mine. "If we let this screw with us, he wins. If we don't fight back and make sure he gets his consequences, he wins."

"I know."

"I'm glad you've decided to do this with me. Does Misty know?"

I shake my head. "I'm going to make photocopies of all of the stuff I've written down and mail it to her lawyer as evidence. Probably with some type of formal letter of testimony. Or whatever."

"Want to do that today?"

"It's probably a good idea to do it soon. You're not doing anything?"

"Nope."

" _Hey_!" Carly skids to a stop and nearly collapses in the chair across from Aki. "Sorry I'm late!"

"Oh, no, no, you're okay!" Aki waves her off. "Everything all right?"

"Yeah, I was just… I was doing research, and I lost track of time…"

"I know how that goes," I say. "What for?"

"I'm looking into the production of the Riding Roids," Carly says. "Three dangerous instances so far with you all… I think they have to be connected, and there has to be more than them. It has to be bigger than this."

"Mmhm," I mutter.

"Found anything so far?" Aki asks.

"Not much. Mikage's told me that they were produced as test objects to put in the duel lanes and use as secondary Bureau agents."

"Secondary? Like they wanted to use robots as police?"

"Exactly."

"Explains why they'd know all the protocols."

My phone buzzes. Aki and Carly keep theorizing about the Riding Roids; I weigh my coffee cup in one hand and my phone in the other.

 **Yusei Fudo:** _can i get your advice on something_

 **Silvan Levine:** _?_

 **Yusei Fudo:** _i just opened up the mail and theres a really weird letter in here for me_

 **Silvan Levine:** _what do u mean weird_

 **Yusei Fudo:** { PHOTO ATTACHED }

I squint at the photo of the letter—crinkled, held in many hands before being sent, maybe, and covered in a curly, feminine sort of cursive:

 _Dear Yusei Fudo:_

 _I am writing to you from a hellhole that the maps call Crash Town_ — _I am writing to you because I have heard great lengths about you and about your friendship with him. This place is a death trap, his intended grave, and though you don't know me, we share a similarity. You may be the only one that can put some sense into him. I ask that you come to take him away from here before he gets himself killed the way he seems to somehow want._

 _Barbara_

 **Silvan Levine:** _who tf is barbara_

 **Silvan Levine:** _who tf is "him"_

 **Silvan Levine:** _thats so ominous holy shit_

 **Yusei Fudo:** _yeah so. Advice_

 **Silvan Levine:** _wtf do u want me to tell u? Some random human sent u an ominous af letter what r u tryin to ask me for_

 **Yusei Fudo:** _i dont know! Youre right its ominous but how does this person know me? Is one of our friends actually trying to die in the middle of nowhere?_

 **Silvan Levine:** _ur literally famous u dumb motherfucker u dont think some random asshole cant find ur address in the whitepages wtf_

 **Yusei Fudo:** _i took my name out of whitepages fight me_

 **Yusei Fudo:** _im gonna look up where crash town is this is ridiculous_

"Silvan, you're typing pretty furiously there," Aki says. "Everything okay?"

"No, yeah, everything's good," I say. "Yusei's—being weird."

"Is he okay?"

"He's fine," I say.

"Hm, how is that going?" Carly leans over the table, chin in her hand, toward Aki.

Aki flushes. "I… don't know."

"You _don't know_?"

"We never hang out! I see him sometimes, like maybe in passing, if we all happen to hang out."

"You know how to solve that, right?"

"Uh, no?"

"You get brave and ask him out!"

Aki's face goes red. " _I absolutely will not!_ "

"Why not?" I ask, still rereading the last few messages I sent to Yusei. "Shoot your shot!"

Carly and I start chanting " _shoot your shot! Shoot your shot!_ " while Aki presses her hands over her ears; I only stop when I get another text from Yusei.

 **Yusei Fudo:** _yeah its in the middle of literal nowhere_

 **Silvan Levine:** _is it even close to us_

 **Yusei Fudo:** _couple hundred and_ _some km west once youre outside the city_

 **Silvan Levine:** _jfc that's gross_

 **Yusei Fudo:** _if anything i am. curious._

 **Silvan Levine:** _U DONT GO FOLLOWING DIRECTIONS OF OMINOUS LETTERS DUMBASS_

 **Yusei Fudo:** _IM CURIOUS_

 **Silvan Levine:** _WHY ARE U LIKE THIS_

 **Yusei Fudo:** _WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO THEN_

 **Silvan Levine:** _ITS PHYSICAL CLICKBAIT THROW IT TF AWAY_

 **Yusei Fudo:** _IT WOULD TAKE ME LIKE A COUPLE HOURS_

 **Silvan Levine:** _YUSEI_

 **Yusei Fudo:** _I COULD TURN AROUND AND COME RIGHT BACK_

 **Silvan Levine:** _Y U S E_ _I_

 **Yusei Fudo:** _try to stop me now_

 **Silvan Levine:** _yusei do NOT_

 **Yusei Fudo:** _im curious and it could be serious_

 **Silvan Levine:** _dumb fuck call me when u wake up in the back of another fuckin soda truck_

 **Yusei Fudo:** _harsh_

"Why does no one ever listen to me," I mutter.

"What?" Carly asks.

"Nothing. The Riding Roids?"

"Right! Mikage told me they discontinued production of them after the Ghost."

I lean forward a little. "Really."

"Yeah. Halted completely."

"Which means that, if there have been other incidents involving them as of late," I say slowly, "somebody _else_ is making them."

"With what materials?" Aki scoffs. "And what motive?"

"Motive, I'm not sure of," Carly says. "But it has to be someone in the Bureau."

"That'd explain why they have the materials to keep making robots. And fake Jack Atlases."

"But how are they doing it under the nose of the rest of the Bureau?" Carly's tapping foot makes a light clanging noise against the table leg.

"We still have no clue who replaced Goodwin," Aki points out. "Who says the Bureau doesn't know about it?"

"Well, Mikage doesn't know about it."

"And Yeager stole our team program a week ago," I say. "Mikage's probably the only clean cop they have."

"Be optimistic."

"Mikage and _maybe_ like five other people."

"That's a little better."

"Anyways." Aki leans over the table. "When we're done, Silvan, we should go to the post office. Get the paperwork stuff squared away now so it's over with."

I swallow. "All right. That's probably best."

Carly hails down the waitress, a pretty but loud girl with short dark hair, and orders her usual—Pu'erh Chai tea with honey. While she waits, she whips out her laptop and asks for our opinions on more of her Riding Roid research, then pretty much chugs her tea as soon as it arrives. Aki, with her oolong, and me, with my black coffee, down the rest of our drinks too and part ways sooner than usual. Carly has more research to do, and Aki wants to go to the post office before it closes.

"I'm glad you decided to do this with me," she's saying as I jiggle my key in the lock on my front door. I have to make copies of the pages I wrote before I do anything else.

"I'm still not completely sure about it," I admit. "But I know it's the only choice I have if I want to stop losing sleep over it."

"Just… don't forget that you can always talk to me. Okay?"

I shove the door open, breathing an 'okay' over my shoulder at her. Ten more minutes with the printer in Evan's room, and I have a paper-clipped stack of all of my documents and writings. I take a couple minutes to pen Misty a letter, trying to make it sound as official as possible in case it has to be recorded or something. I'll have to buy a manila folder at the post office to send it all in.

Aki, outside, is clicking away on her phone.

"Anything new?" I ask.

"Carly's just giving me some pretty feverish updates." Aki slides her phone into her bag. "She's really worked up about this Riding Roid thing."

"I would be too if someone had tried to frame and then kill my significant other."

"Yeah, that's fair." Aki shakes her head a little. "All ready to go?"

"Yep." I weigh my papers in my hands. "All copied and paperclipped."

"Cool. Post office closes at 5."

The post office is a big, winding building uptown near Aki's house. We park in the front lot and I focus on the sound my shoes make on the white linoleum floor as we pass the P.O. boxes, the rows and rows of mail chutes, and finally make our way to the front counter where a wrinkly dark-haired lady types on a clunky desktop.

Aki gives the address for Misty's lawyer's office. I pay, robotically, for an envelope and a smattering of stamps, and then I watch the lady behind the counter carry what feels like my last confession toward a mail chute behind the desk. I watch it disappear and hear it land heavily somewhere I can't see, my hands feeling as empty as my chest.

"See?" Aki says as we leave back out the front door. "Simple as that."

"Yeah," I say, grateful that my voice doesn't catch.

It was so easy. So anticlimactic. Just like that, it's done and I'm testifying. I still don't know if this is the right choice. Maybe I won't know until I'm up on the stand. I can only hope that my nerve remains that long.

Aki invites me back to her place for dinner; I think she must see the uneasiness on my face. I'm grateful, but only because I'm not sure I want to be alone right now. By the time we get back to her place, the sun's starting to dip beneath the horizon. An early sunset for a late winter.

I sit at Aki's kitchen table, between her and her mother, and I make stiff small talk about the weather and about my job. The food sits, warming, on the stove so that Aki's father can eat when he gets home later. Aki rambles on about her winter exams, about registering for graduation, and about internships. I'm grateful that she has so much to say, because I'm swimming so deeply in my own anxiety that I feel like I'd be unable to get more than a couple sentences out if urged to speak again.

It's done, it's done, it's done. And, yet, it isn't. I've made the first step, and the next is to be uneasy until the day comes when I stand up in front of a room of people I've never met, in front of my kidnapper, and confess that I am afraid.

Aki, still probably concerned about me, drives with me to make sure I get home safe. We stand in front of the front door and she hugs me for a very long time, warm and steady and smelling like rosy perfume.

"You're going to be okay," she murmurs into my hair. "I'll make sure of it."

"Thanks," I choke out. "Thank you."

"Want to call me in the morning? Just so I can make sure you had an okay night."

"Okay."

She's only slightly taller than me, so she doesn't have to stretch much to kiss the top of my head. "We're gonna get through this. He wins otherwise."

"He wins otherwise."

When Aki leaves, I wander back inside and lie on the floor, using my jacket as a makeshift blanket. Evan comes downstairs a while later and mulls about the kitchen; it sounds like he's washing dishes, or maybe otherwise filling things with water. I decide he's probably making dinner when I hear the burner on the stove clicking to a start. Then, there's silence, probably as my brother contemplates what to do next, and I hear him say, "Silvan? How long have you been on the floor?"

"Since birth." I pause, change my mind about the sarcasm, and add, "I dunno. Half hour maybe."

"Wanna get up at any point? I'm gonna make soup."

"I'll get up when it's done."

"Oooookay." He comes over and sits on the couch. "How was your day?"

"Good. The Teatime Team met late today."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Carly couldn't come until later, she's doing research on the Riding Roids. We didn't really hang around long either." I swallow. "I just got back from the post office."

He gives me a puzzled look. "Why?"

"I—I sent my testimonial to Misty's lawyer."

He opens and closes his mouth. "Oh."

"Yeah."

"...you okay?"

I sort of shrug.

"...this why you're on the floor?"

I shrug.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"I don't know what else to say," I confess. "You know I'm scared. You know how I feel. I'm still feeling all of those things, but it's all out of my hands so I can't do anything except wait and keep being scared."

"Just let me know if I can do anything to help you. Okay?"

I shift a little. "...okay."

The evening is very uneventful. I'm on the floor, I think, for another half hour before Evan finishes making dinner, we eat in mostly silence, and then he goes up to bed early. I stay downstairs with the lights off, aimlessly skimming through the pages of some book I didn't look at the title of before I picked it up. It's not to read right now; just something tangible to put in my hands.

I feel like I should be falling apart. Maybe I am. It doesn't _feel_ like I am, though. The Riding Roids and all this Divine stuff are so, so _much._ Too much for me to try and think about. An internal and an external churning together that would—that should—hurt me more than it is.

Maybe none of it has sunk in yet. Maybe I'm waiting for a storm that's still building.

I don't know, but I hate this calm. I hate feeling nothing.

Before I know it, my phone starts buzzing; I check the caller ID and, in seeing that it's Yusei, pick up right away. I check the clock; I don't know how long I've been sitting here (it's much too dark outside now), but it's… late for him to be calling.

Though he is, thankfully, something else to think about.

"Before you ask, no it is not too late for me to bail your ass out and say I-told-you-so," I say.

" _I need you to come to me right now_."

I pause at how serious his voice sounds. Like the inside of a grave. "...what?"

" _You need to get over here. I don't care who or what you bring with you, but I need some help. I need you here._ "

"Yusei, what is going on?"

" _It's Kiryu._ "

Everything in me halts.

" _Kiryu's here. I don't know how the person who sent me the letter figured out that we knew each other, or how to contact me, but she did. And Kiryu's out here to kill himself._ "

I feel like my heart's in my throat. "I'm coming to you right now."

" _My phone's dying, so I don't know if I'll be able to call you back, but just get here. Bring whoever. Barbara and I have a plan for sundown, but… We have to help him._ "

"We will. We'll help him or I die trying. I'm on my way." I hang up and immediately streak up the stairs to get a bag. I load a water bottle and some non-perishable food inside, my keys, and something to write with.

I don't wake Evan. I… I don't want to get his hopes up.

I do, however, wake the other guys. I bang on the door until someone grumpily comes to answer it (Crow), and then I make him wake Jack. Bruno, sleepily, moves to one end of the couch so a very irritated Crow and Jack can sit there, too, while I explain.

As soon as I mention Kiryu, though, Jack and Crow are definitely awake.

"What do you mean, you're going alone?!" Crow exclaims.

"Don't be a fucking idiot, we're coming too!" Jack adds.

"Let me finish!" I snap. "I need you to be here in case something happens. In case we need backup."

"Like what kind of backup?"

"I don't know, I don't know any details. Just that Kiryu's trying to kill himself in the middle of fucking nowhere. If I'm not back in twenty four hours, you bring the cops, you bring the paramedics, I don't care who you bring. Just bring somebody. I don't know what Kiryu's up to, but I will _not_ let him die."

Crow's face grows very solemn. "What about Evan?"

"Tell him—tell him I went after Yusei. He doesn't need to know more than that unless shit gets real. If everything goes south, if Kiryu ends up dead…"

"You don't want him to know there was a chance."

"...if I couldn't stop it, if he knew I was there and couldn't or didn't do anything, I'd never forgive myself."

"Is it… really a good idea to go by yourself?" Bruno asks, yawning halfway through the question.

"I guess I'll find out when I get there," I say. "Where's the map Yusei was using to figure out where this place is?"

Crow drops an atlas down in front of me, and I start looking for the quickest route to the teeny dot far outside the city that's marked 'Crash'. Most of it is open road, so as soon as I'm out of the city, I'll be okay if I just keep heading west. The coordinates on the legend and the mile count between us and Crash Town are easy to commit to memory.

"What are you gonna do when you get there?" Bruno asks.

"What am I gonna do?" What _am_ I gonna do? "I'm… gonna beat the shit out of my brother's ex until he gets a clue."

"Good. Punch him for me," Crow gripes. "Yusei inherited all his dramatics from Kiryu—and his martyr complex."

"That's believable." I point at them on my way up to the front door. "24 hours, you guys. I'm dead serious. If you don't hear from me by then, bring _everything_ you can think of."

"Please," Crow emphasizes, "be careful."

"I will be."

I feel selfish wanting to try to help on my own, but I need this to quiet myself. Worrying about something else— _working_ on something else—will make my brain stop hyperfocusing on the trial. Even if only for a little while.

And _Kiryu_ … will he even remember me? Will I be able to talk _any_ sense into him? He was cruel, but efficient, as a Dark Signer. I saw some side of him that I think was hurting a lot. Maybe I could tap into some of that, if Yusei can't. Maybe I can invoke my brother without him being here. He would come with me in an instant if I woke him up and asked him to, but… Kiryu is one of the biggest things that breaks him. There's a lot I still don't know about him, but I _do_ know that Evan still loves him. There's a weakness there that I can't fully understand.

I'm going to help him. No matter what. Because, if he dies, I'll never forgive myself for not stopping it.

I load myself and my belongings up on my duel runner, fire up the engine, and zip off into the night.


	42. Wanderer

By midday, I'm somewhere in the desert with my jacket coiled around my waist, wishing I'd covered myself in sunscreen before going galavanting through the boiling sun.

Sunrise (about an hour or so into my drive) made the weather much worse for wear, and I'm just glad that riding gives me a breeze—albeit a hot one. The ground is so uneven that my drive is a lot of slowing down and speeding up again as I roll over rocks and crevices that can't be avoided.

The atlas said that Crash Town was a few hundred kilometers west of Neo Domino: ergo, a few hours' drive. I've been thinking about what I'll do when I get there.

First: find Yusei. I don't know anything about this situation and he does. Finding him will tell me where to go from here. And, hopefully, how to help Kiryu.

Up ahead, I pull to a stop on a ridge to drink some water. The arid, sandy wind has made my lips begin to crack. Thankfully, mercifully, down below me in the distance, I see little wooden houses. Presumably, Crash Town, since there appears to be nothing else out here for miles around.

I didn't charge my phone when I left, so when I check it for the time, it has around half its battery left. Hopefully enough for me to call for help should I need it. I doubt I can use it to contact Yusei.

It's been five hours since I left. Five. I have to wonder how fast Yusei was hauling to get here in the time (I'm guessing) he did. I still have eight hours until sundown. Eight hours to find Yusei. Plenty of time, I should hope. I assume, when he said 'sundown,' he meant sundown _today_ ; and whatever he's planned for tonight must be important for getting Kiryu out.

From here, the town, of course, looks small. How hard could it be to find one person?

I'm still a ways from the town proper, so when I reach the outskirts, the sun isn't too far from being directly overhead. The buildings are all wooden, barely standing up, and lined like decrepit toy houses. Everything could use a new coat of paint. I hop off my duel runner and start rolling it through the main drag, right past an ironic set of tumbleweeds.

Where do I start? This place looks empty. I roll my duel runner past a few of the first buildings until I reach what I'm guessing is a bar, by the look of the doorway. Typical saloon-style swinging doors. Yusei certainly neglected to mention to me that I'd be walking into a Western.

A bar, though, is a pretty good place to start. The sign up on top would need a better paint job for me to actually read the name of it. Oddly enough, the awning is trimmed with well-kept blue bunting; pretty unusual, considering the rest of the place is in disrepair. I park my duel runner in the alley, put on my best poker face, and shove my way through the saloon doors.

There are only four or five patrons inside, plus the bartender, and as I make my way toward the bar, I can feel them staring. It's probably a bad idea to turn and look, but I do. All men; all marked. All wearing some odd spot of blue, too bright not to be noticed amid dusty dark jackets, coats, flannels, and vests.

Okay. Gang territory, then. What the hell has Kiryu gotten himself into?

I take a seat at the bar and the bartender—also marked, but not wearing any visible gang regalia—looks me over. "Lady not from around here."

Okay. Okay okay okay okay. I could probably lift a couple of these guys without Wasting, but I think I'm the shortest one in here, which doesn't look good for me if situations get sour. I need to pull a power move or… something.

I toss my jacket onto the bar; the leather slaps heavily against the wood. "I'm just passing through." I've done this only once before in Neo Domino, so I'm not sure if it'll work, but… it's worth a try. I pull one of my heftier, more recognizable cards—Ancient Gear Gadjiltron Chimera—from my wrist dealer and set it on the bar with its inscription toward the bartender. I take a quick scan of the back shelf, trying to guess what's on it; what the most intimidating thing I could order might be. "Whiskey."

The bartender looks at me, then looks at my card. I bite the inside of my cheek to keep my face stoic. This town is so empty, so out of anyone's way, there's a chance that the bar wouldn't have any pure alcohol unless someone who really liked it went out of their way to bring it here.

After a couple of seconds of silence, he reaches for something on the shelf that looks like apple juice (that definitely is not apple juice) and pours it into a cloudy glass tumbler chipped in a couple places along its lip. He sets it on top of my card and watches me expectantly.

Whew, I'm going to hate myself for this. I toss the whole thing back, only breaking eye contact with the bartender to tip my head backward and emphasize the action. It burns badly on the way down, almost all the way upward into the crown of my head—shit like whiskey and bourbon have this knack for _completely_ emptying out my sinuses—and as I set the glass back down it takes every ounce of self control I have not to make the worst grimace possible at the taste. Good gods, there was definitely more than one shot in that glass.

The bartender blinks at me. I lift my arms up as casually as I can onto the bar, tattoos brandished, and say, "I'm staying into the night to fix up my bike before I hit the road again. Where's there to sleep in this rat hole?"

The bartender jerks his chin up. "I got rooms upstairs. But if ya want my advice, I'd get outta dodge before sundown."

I slide my glass closer, even though I'm not totally sure if I could knock back any more alcohol the way I just did. My body buzzes with warmth. "I'll stay however long a tune-up takes me. I'm afraid your big bad wooden village doesn't scare me."

"If ya don't duel, ya don't stay." The voice behind me makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up, but I swivel around on my chair slowly. Lazily. Trying to maintain calm even though I think my legs are shaking a little.

I meet eyes with one of the other five patrons, who's made his way over to me: a tall, lanky character with swoopy brown hair. His face is round, cheeks pink and sunburnt.

"Can ya duel, little lady?" He challenges.

My buzzed brain goes, "THROW THE WHISKEY IN HIS FAAAAACE!" and my rational brain goes, "STICK TO THE FUCKING PLAAAAN!"

I stand up, my newly refilled drink in my hand. My thoughts swim with each other. He's a couple heads taller than me. A bit better built than the others in the saloon. There's something of a hunger in his face, but flirting would be a bad move here. If it's gang territory I'm wading through, playing demure would only end badly. Now's not the time to look the innocent flower and be a serpent underneath; I need to skip straight to the poison-tipped fangs.

I square my shoulders and swirl the liquid in my cup. "With my fists or with my cards?"

A toothy, oddly straight (but brown-ish) smile, considering that we're in the middle of nowhere. Dental work done somewhere else, maybe. Now's when I notice that he isn't marked. "Either one works."

"There must not be a lot to do for fun around here," I say. "Empty little place."

"Sure, if ya don't roll with the right crowds." He peers around me. At the counter. "You run Gears?"

"Machines," I answer. "You probably don't get a lot of these around here, hm?"

"Word on the street says a kid runnin' Scraps rolled in yesterday. Apparently good. Stupid good."

Bingo. "So you collect duelists for fun."

"We duel here for fun, little lady. Whoever's in with the most duelists owns the town. And the mines."

I pretend to stare absently at my drink. "Mining town, hm? Are you in charge?"

"Maybe. And you're, what. Passin' through?"

"Maybe," I parrot. "Unless you're asking to make me rich."

"Let's see ya duel, little lady. See if you're worth makin' rich."

"When I win, you'll regret doubting me." I take a breath in through my nose, hold my breath, and throw back my second glass. It doesn't burn as much as it did the first time, though it's still pretty bad. My head spins a little as I try to blink my way past the taste. "What do I call you?"

He nods as I clank the glass back down onto the bar. "Scotch."

"My name is—" Gang territory. Bad news. Me in the middle of it… "C."

"C. Short for something?"

"Use your imagination."

He chuckles a little. "Here's the deal, C. Ya tag along with us. Ya show us what'cha can do. If the boss likes it, ya get paid. If he doesn't, ya get to work for wastin' our time." Scotch nods a little toward the bartender, something bordering both a half smile and a grimace bringing up one side of his mouth. "You can leave those on the boss' tab." Eyes flickering to me, he adds, "For now."

Boss. I start making a list of the facts I have so that I can try to piece together what's happening a little quicker. The patrons in the bar are suddenly on all sides of us, and I reach to grab my jacket and my card off the counter before I'm suddenly being whisked outside.

The sun is high and hot. We're walking the opposite direction from my duel runner.

"Hey!" I exclaim, stabbing a finger behind us. "My bike's that way."

Scotch snaps his fingers. One of the guys walking with us turns back and goes the other way. "He'll keep an eye on it for ya."

"If I find even a scratch on it, you'll see what I can really do."

"I'll keep that in mind."

Okay. Okay okay okay. So here I am, in a circle of gang members, presumably being taken to some boss. Some leader. If I play my cards right—figuratively and literally—I can figure out what's going on in this dinky town, find Yusei, and get out with Kiryu by sundown.

I heave my jacket up over my shoulder and do my best to keep up this casual veneer I put on in the bar; the alcohol makes the sunlight spin and fracture, and I can only hope that I look as aloof as I feel. Before I know it we're across town, in the shadow of rolling hills dotted with chaparral vegetation. A big wooden house stands mostly silent and solitary, but there are bottles littered all around the front porch in between tired, hungover-looking people loitering out front. When they part for us to pass, I figure that they must be serving as guards.

The inside of the house stinks of booze, and after what I just put myself through, it makes me feel a little sick. Scotch parades us through a foyer decorated with a concerning amount of antlers, into a little office space with dilapidated shelves and a big wooden desk visibly sticky with what I think might be wine.

The guy sitting at the desk winds up slowly from the way he's reclined, toppling a beer bottle as he slides his feet off the desk. He's slight, paler than I'd expect from someone in the desert, with a head of long, slick dark hair.

"What're you?" he asks, voice a little rough.

"I hear you pay good duelists well," I say. "When do I start?"

"Whew, straightforward. Not bad." He deliberately kicks another bottle off of the desk. "Think you have what it takes to fight for the Ramon Group?"

Ramon Group—gang's name, obviously. Is it safe to make the assumption that this greasy weirdo is "Ramon?"

"Who do I have to fight for you to give me a job?"

Ramon grabs a bottle off the floor and flings it at the doorway. "CLINT!"

The bottle shatters against the threshold, and it takes everything in me not to flinch. Glass rains down into my hair, and a kid in a blue shirt darts in from the other room. "Yeah, boss!"

He's big, for a kid. I can see signs of youth in his face—acne scars, round jaw—but he's built like a fighter.

"Where're your cards? Dame wants a job, gotta see if she's up to task."

The kid (Clint) takes one look at me and scowls, and my heart climbs into my throat when he moves his jacket aside to brandish a revolver in his waist guard.

"Hey, I didn't sign up for a _gunfight_ ," I exclaim.

"Not familiar with how we play around here? You want a job, you're gonna hafta be." Ramon gestures toward Scotch who—who shoves a revolver into my hand, too. "Stow it, dame."

I've never held a gun before, but this is… I don't know, lighter than I would have expected. I slide it into my belt, right beside my waist pouch. There's a moment of silence, and I decide to watch and wait before anything else; I've never tried to Internalize energy from a weapon before.

"Draw," Ramon says, and Clint's hand shoots to his belt. The revolver, once in his hand, seems to expand until it… it looks like a standard five-set Monster zone.

By the time I draw mine and figure out how to crank it open, Clint's got his deck stowed in the revolver and his hand drawn. I think I get it now. I switch my own deck from my wrist dealer to the revolver's port, and then we're going. First to draw gets the first turn. Interesting way to do things.

"I start by activatin' tha Spell Double Summon! This turn, I can Normal Summon one more time! Next I summon Thunder King Rai-Oh in Attack Position!"

1900 ATK, 800 DEF, the ticker on the revolver tells me.

"Then I summon D.D. Warrior Lady!"

1500 ATK, 1600 DEF. Small fry.

"Then I place a card face down 'n end my turn!"

Right. Ooooookay. So they duel differently here, too, drawing makeshift pistols who determine who plays first. I don't remember signing up for this many cliches.

If I want to impress—and get out of here unscathed—I need to do this fast. I'm familiar with D.D. Warrior Lady and her special effect, to banish any card that engages it in battle. I don't know anything about Thunder King Rai-Oh, but it's likely it's an Effect Monster. Then there's the facedown to be concerned with, which could be anything from a counter Trap to a reborn Spell.

I draw. I have the Field Spell Geartown, the Continuous Spell Machina Armored Unit, the Trap Defense Draw, and the Monsters Machina Gearframe, Machina Fortress, and Cyber Dragon.

Ooooookay. If I can get this right, I might be able to finish this in one or two turns.

"When monsters exist only on my opponent's field, I can Special Summon Cyber Dragon in Attack Position!"

It's got 2100 ATK, it can take either of those monsters out. And summoning it first means that I can summon everything else in my hand after it without Tribute.

"By sacrificin' my Thunder King Rai-Oh, I can negate that Special Summon!"

Oh, that's interesting. He must think I have only that monster in my hand. With Cyber Dragon and Thunder King Rai-Oh now gone, I just need to sacrifice one monster to take out D.D. Warrior Lady. Then, whether or not that face down gets in my way, I can mount a direct attack.

"All right, then, I activate the Field Spell, Geartown!"

After Yusei's scuffle with Heitmann at Duel Academia, I went digging for some Ancient Gear cards. They're rare and pretty expensive, hard to come by, but a little trading with some of the right people—and the help of Rally and the guys back in Satellite—landed me an Ancient Gear Field Spell and a couple of bigger-name powerhouse monsters.

"I activate Mystical Space Typhoon!"

Oh, okay.

"Say bye-bye ta ya Geartown!"

"All right, I will! But when Geartown gets sent to my Graveyard, I can Special Summon an Ancient Gear monster from my hand, deck, or Grave! I'll summon Ancient Gear Gadjiltron Dragon!"

In this tiny room, the Dragon hologram has to hunch over to not clip through the ceiling. It's sporting a wonderful 3000 ATK, which means that this doofus absolutely screwed his way into losing in one turn.

"If I have monsters in my hand or Grave whose levels exceed its, I can also Special Summon Machina Fortress! Then, I'll Normal Summon Machina Gearframe!"

By sending Gearframe off to take out D.D. Warrior Lady, I can add up Gadjiltron's 3000 ATK with Fortress' 2500 ATK.

"Machina Gearframe, destroy D.D. Warrior Lady!"

After the damage resolution—300 LP—D.D. Warrior Lady's effect automatically activates, even though Clint kind of looks too stunned to explain it himself.

"Ancient Gear Gadjiltron Dragon and Machina Fortress, attack directly!"

The ticker on my revolver hits 0, and Clint's revolver starts spewing white smoke.

That was… lucky. Really goddamn lucky. That could've taken longer, or I could have lost. Thank fuck I didn't.

Ramon claps another beer bottle in his hand, then takes a drink out of it. "CLINT! You're a fuckin' embarrassment. What's your name, dame?"

"I'm C," I say thinly. "When do I start?"

"Ahhh… Maybe tomorrow. We'll see." He totters up to his feet. "We call my best man the Handless Demon, an' word on the street's Malcom's got a new kid who could give us a run for our money. If Handless heads to the mines tonight, you're startin' tomorrow. No way I'm givin' my empire up to fuckin' _Malcom_."

That was a lot. I trail after Ramon as he heads into the foyer again, wobbling around; I figure, with all these signs of celebration and what Ramon just said about "Malcom," this is the winning house. Drink to celebrate and then sober up for work at sunset, I assume.

But _Handless Demon_. Kiryu's Handless combo comes to mind. Kiryu has to work for Ramon. Which means that, knowing my friend and his way of dealing with shit like this, the "Malcom" who must operate the other end of this gang war probably just employed Yusei. And that's what Yusei must have been talking about, 'having a plan at sunset.' They duel at sunset for something, probably reps from both sides, and the loser… what? 'Heads to the mines'?

There's still a ton that I'm not sure about. But I'm in on Ramon's side now, which means that I can have a front row seat if I want one. And I might even be able to get to Kiryu before Yusei does.

Ramon goes wandering toward the door. Scotch opens it for him. "Be back sometime." He throws back the rest of the beer, chucks the bottle behind him, and lazily jerks the door shut. The bottle lands at my feet, bounces, but doesn't shatter this time.

Once the door's closed… the whole atmosphere changes. Space around me seems to shrink, and I'm so stifled that I escape into the next room, jacket hitched up on my shoulder and the dueling revolver stuffed back into my belt. The next room is a billiards room, crammed with pool tables and plush chairs, a bar at the back in dangerously low stock, and a china cabinet with its door ajar beside the window.

As I turn to peek over my shoulder, I finally register the source of the horrible claustrophobia that just seemed to creep over me: Clint and a few of the bar escorts have followed me in here.

I push down my tensed up shoulders and turn my nose up a little. "Take a picture, sport, it'll last longer."

"Don' have no girls in our group." I square my shoulders a little more as Clint sizes me up.

"I'm a trendsetter."

"If ol' Handless gets hauled off ta the mines, I ain't losin' my top spot ta no girl."

"Sorry," I say, baring my teeth in more of a grimace than a smile, "but you just did."

From behind me somewhere, somebody cracks their knuckles.

Ooooooooookay. That's how it's going to be.

"Ain't _none_ 'a us losin' our spots ta no _girl_."

The windows explode.

It gives me enough time to remove myself from the circle that'd formed around me, and to size up my opponents. Four of them—including a couple that I recognize from the bar.

Clint comes diving at me first, and in the two seconds of panic that rise up in me, I practically forget the near four months of kickboxing I've been doing. In the next two seconds, my fist connects with his cheek. He's taken aback enough by the jab that I land a hitch kick upwards into his jaw and he stumbles backwards into two other guys. The free one, one of the patrons from the bar, has considerable height on me, but his neck looks like it might be smaller around than my bicep. He ducks a jab from me and elbows me in the ribs; it knocks the wind out of me, but now I'm close enough that I can connect my knee with his jaw. It throws him completely off his feet, and I pause to catch my breath before Clint comes back, flanked by the two guys I tossed him into.

I retreat a little, fists up defensively in front of my face, and wait for someone (the guy on Clint's left) to get close enough to me for me to pull a trick Crow taught me from fighting on the street: I get my knee around the back of his, hooking my leg in close enough to his that he has no choice but to grab onto me to stay standing. Now that I'm all that's keeping him upright, leaning forward sweeps him up off of his feet, and releasing him with no more than a tiny push forward sends him flying into a chair.

By the time I recover and double back into a defensive stance, someone's got their arms hooked up around mine, yanking them backward. Pain and panic twist upward in my stomach, and as they pull back, I throw myself in with the movement, flinging us both to the ground. I get my leg up over his throat, and putting pressure down makes him let go of my aching arms.

Clint is still there, though—and just when I thought I could be in a good place, he picks me up right off of the ground, and the billiards room goes flying past me in a whirl of light and color until glass is suddenly shattering underneath my body.

Yeah, okay, fuck actually fighting.

My head spinning, I heave myself up from the pile of broken glass and wooden shelves I just made behind the bar and scramble up on top of the counter. My stabilizer comes off in my hand, and as I Expel force and fire outward, I can feel shards of glass leaving my skin, too. Just the sight of that sends two assailants booking it out the door. I slide off the top of the bar to avoid a chair Clint throws, and I raise a hand to Waste him backward into the china cabinet, which makes an oddly beautiful sound when the dishes in it break.

Blood is dribbling down from my nose even before number 4's fist connects with my face; I feel the blow almost entirely in my teeth, and I have to spit blood out after I Waste him backward through the window.

The billiards room is a mess at this point; shattered glass and furniture litter the floor, and the sickly scent of alcohol suddenly smells a lot like blood.

I clamp my stabilizer back on around my arm, dig for my jacket in the glass behind the bar, and stumble toward the front door, but I don't know how far I make it before I get so dizzy that I hit the floor.

When I wake up, everything is… ugh. Foggy. I can't breathe all that well through my nose, and I can feel blood crusted around my lips when I try to wet them with the tip of my tongue.

I'm moving though. Moving. It takes a while for my foggy head to register feeling, to register someone's shoulder underneath my stomach. Someone is carrying me. _Someone is carrying me_.

It's the first thing I can think to do, no matter how much I don't want to do it: the air starts to audibly crack around me as electricity blossoms on my skin.

I don't let out a lot, but it's enough that I tumble to the ground, jostling my shoulder against rock. It hurts like hell, but luckily I don't think it broke or dislocated. I can still lean on it to push myself up into a seated position.

My head is spinning, and it takes me a second to blink away all the colors and black dots in my eyes before I make out the stairwell we're on, the handrail all strung up with dim orange lanterns.

I don't recognize whoever is on the ground, whoever was toting me through these—these tunnels, it looks like. Hell, I don't even know where I am. But I collect my jacket from him and relieve him of his dueling revolver.

My nose and mouth are crusted with blood, and when I reach to touch my face, I have to recoil at how sharp the pain in my lip is. I definitely split it. My knuckles, too, are split in a couple of places, and my whole body aches when I heave myself up onto my feet.

But I've shouldered worse aches.

We've been heading up the stairwell, it looks like (at least from the positioning of things), so I figure to keep following the lanterns up, up, up, until I reach a bridge up on top that stretches off into the distance—in near darkness, save for the string of gas lanterns.

I come out onto a wooden platform in a room that's slightly brighter, and down below me, the sound of metal against rock rings out. I can identify the shapes of people, flickering in the shadows like weary candles, swinging pickaxes at the ground.

I'm in the mines.

I scan the ground level, trying to look for any tunnels or areas where brighter light is coming from, and I swear I see the tail of a familiar blue jacket vanish into a crevice just a couple seconds before I really look at it. Of course, I could be half-hallucinating—my head is still spinning—but it's a tunnel and it's a lead that I could take. I start slowly down another set of stairs from the top of a platform, and oddly, workers shrink away from me when I pass them. I kind of don't blame them, I probably look horrifying.

The inside of the crevice is pitch black. I search for anything that I have left, anything I've Internalized that I haven't used—a pitiful flicker of fire, as if from a lighter, lights up on my thumb, and as I start down the tunnel, I put a hand on the wall to make sure I don't walk into anything.

Cool air blasts my face as I exit out into open air, and… it's nighttime. Fuck me, how long have I been unconscious?

Sounds of a scuffle down below the mouth of the outcropping catch my attention, and as I slide uncouthly down the slope (landing squarely on my ass) I find Yusei with his hands clenched in Kiryu's shirt, mid-heaving-him-up-off-the-ground.

" _Silvan_?" Yusei breathes. Kiryu slips out of his hands, landing on the ground on his knees. He's—tired, and gaunt-looking, hair several inches longer than it was when I saw him last. But he's alive. _Alive_.

"Hi, tha's me." Oof. Consonants hurt. "'Sup?"

Yusei takes in the sight of me for a second, then, his voice shaking with quiet anger, says, "What the _hell_ happened to you."

I wipe something dripping (probably blood) away from my busted lip. "I, uh. 'M okay, I promise—"

"You're bleeding!" He booms. "Everywhere!"

"And you're in shackles," I say nonchalantly. "Next."

As I lift my hand, he starts off, "Silvan I swear to gods," but I've already Wasted the clamps on his wrists open. They clatter noisily to the bedrock, followed by Kiryu's.

"I don't want you Wasting at me when you're—"

"Listen, 'm not gonna talk t'you if you're gonna shout."

He breathes out sharply. "What happened."

"Got in a fight. Kinda obvious, friend."

"Don't give me that."

"Okay, so I had it out with some of Ramon's guys, big deal—"

"Silvan!"

"—got dragged across a bar, threw someone into a china cabinet, 'm cool. Should see the other guy." I try to manage a smile, but it hurts. "Wha', not happy t'see me?"

"You can barely speak coherently," he snaps. "I shouldn't have called you—"

"Hey, okay, fuck you. 'M not letting you get yourself into trouble without me. An' 'm not letting you possibly fuck up saving the guy my brother loves."

"But… why?" Kiryu's quiet question drives a wedge into my argument with Yusei. I look at him and his tired, sad eyes. Green again, like in Evan's photographs.

"Why," I say slowly, trying not to brush my teeth against my lip.

"Neither of you should have come," he says. "I'm better off here. You need to leave me and—"

"Wha', let you die?" I ask. "Great suggestion, but not happening."

"What did I ever do for you except hurt you?" Kiryu's expression twists. "I don't deserve this—you! I should be here. I deserve—"

"To be dead?" I say. "No, you don't."

"You have no idea—"

"Yes, dumbass, I do." I take a step in his direction and Yusei steps toward me; as if to stand between me and Kiryu. I say, "Kiryu, we have a commonality."

"Oh, and what's that?"

"When I was in Arcadia, I wanted t'die more an' more every day. I was imprisoned too. Electrocuted when I didn't follow orders. Alive only because of the gift tha' got me trapped. 'Pparently I should've at least died of malnourishment. I couldn't escape or go anywhere 'cause I didn't have anywhere t'go. Not until Yusei found me, told me I had Evan. With him I had a home an' a family an' an identity. An' I wasn't gonna give up the hope of that, not for anything."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"'Cause I know wha' it's like t'be at rock bottom. I know wha' being better looks like, even if jus' a li'l. An' if I have t'keep reminding you that there's someone who loves you an' who's been suffering about you for months now, I will."

"I hurt him. I can't come back from that."

"People are more forgiving than you think, Kiryu. An' you're not unlovable 'cause of your mistakes. As long as you have remorse, as long as you want to atone, you can always come back."

He looks up at me at last, eyes all pained. He points toward me. "That happened because of me."

I dab blood away from my lip. "It happened 'cause this trash town's full of gang beatniks who don't like being disagreed with an' 'm a girl who looks easily overpowered. 'M here t'help you 'cause I care wha' happens t'you, Kiryu. Wha'ever barfights happen t'me happen 'cause of me."

He's silent. Yusei says, "Where the hell have you even been?"

"Tha's, uh. Not important."

I seize up as he skims a hand over my shoulder blades. "You're all cut up."

"Glass," I say. "Expelled it out."

"What was your plan, Silvan? What was the point of all this?"

"I jus'—didn't have any way t'contact you. Needed t'figure out wha' was going on. Firs' place I found was a bar, talked my way into Ramon's house, dueled my way into his gang. Kid that lost his job t'me didn't take it too well."

"Right, so they beat you half to death."

"I got thrown into the bar an' punched once in the face," I clarify. "Rest of it's from Wasting."

"Silvan."

"Look, you're the one who didn't give me details. I still don' know wha' the fuck's going on."

"You don't know _anything_?"

"Well! Based on context clues, Kiryu was a duelist for Ramon. You got hired by whoever the fuck Malcom is. But tha's it."

"That's it?"

"I dunno anything about the mines or why the fuck these idiots duel for 'em."

"They're Dyne mines," Yusei explains. "There are two gangs in town, the Ramon Group and the Malcom Family, and every sunset they send representatives to duel each other. The loser gets sent to the mines to mine Dyne for the opposing group. For life."

"Kiryu came here t'lose," I realize.

"Yeah, except he wouldn't lose unless it was honorably. He never threw a match." Yusei gestures back toward Kiryu, who's on the ground. "Idiot wanted to 'deserve' a lifelong sentence to backbreaking labor even though he already thinks he does."

"So… you beat him."

"Well yeah, I got tricked into it. The lady who sent for me, Barbara? She works for Malcom."

"Sleeps with him," Kiryu retorts.

"After I won, it turned out she was planning to turn the town's ownership around and send me to the mines, too––since Ramon owns everything, and Malcom barely owns his own duel disk. She passed it off like she was going to help me steal Kiryu away after he lost, but we're both stuck here now."

"If I wasn't bruised all over I'd hit you for not fuckin' listening t'me."

"Yeah, yeah, okay, I know. But if I hadn't come you'd still be stealing census records from the library trying to track him down."

"You've been looking for me?" Kiryu sounds hoarse when he says it.

"Evan misses you like hell," I say. "I wasn't gonna keep letting him do tha'. We knew the others were alive, an' I was prepared t'track you down no matter how long it took."

He doesn't look at me, but I almost think I see his face flush red.

When I cut my eyes back to Yusei, I notice something around his neck that I didn't notice before "Wha's—tha'?"

He steps back when I try to reach out for it. "It's nothing. I can take it off."

"Don't you do tha' t'me. Wha' is it?"

His mouth becomes a displeased line. "Just let me deal with it. Please?"

I don't like what it looks like. "No. Tell me wha' it is."

He's silent, still, as I take another step forward and put a hand on the thing. It sits close to his skin like a collar, and the instant I touch it, I know exactly what it is. I can feel the heat inside of it, ready to strike up like a match. The years of electricity in my bones crackle in response.

"Who put this on you," I whisper.

"I can take it off," he says slowly.

"Who."

"They—They put one on everyone who enters the mine. To keep them in check. It's okay, I can jimmie it off."

It's already off in my hand, though; the electric locking mechanism wasn't hard to Waste open. Yusei shifts backward a little and I throw the thing as hard as I can into the distance, off the edge of the slope. My shoulder throbs in response.

"Didn't hurt you, did it?" I murmur.

"No, nobody ever turned it on while it was on me. I'm okay."

"Kiryu," I say sternly, and he whips toward me. "Get up, 'm getting tha' stupid fuckin' shock collar far away from you."

I put a hand on his collar to get it off of him, and he says, "I'd say you look well, better than the last time we talked, but you're all bloodied up."

"I'd say you look better than the last time we talked, but you're trying t'kill yourself."

He says nothing, rightfully, as I hurl his collar into the distance. If I find out who's idea shock collars were, I just might try to kill them.

"So, boys," I say. "Wha' now?"

"You're hurt and you're going home," Yusei says flatly.

"'M sorry, but wha' are _you_ planning? 'M not going home without you."

"I… I hurt a lot of people in my time here." Kiryu totters to his feet. "Look at that."

He points out, off into the distance, where shiny obelisk-looking things stick up out of the soft dirt down below where we're standing. They're… everywhere, going off far into the distance, and after looking at them for a long time I finally realize that they're duel disks.

They're gravesites.

"Are… they… really…"

"A lot of people die in the mines," Yusei says. "The only way to survive out here is to join a gang and win to make the money you need to go somewhere else. But if you lose, you lose everything."

"No kidding."

"I put a lot of people in the mines trying to go there myself," Kiryu says. "I have to pay for that."

"You're not staying here," Yusei retorts.

"Is _tha_ ' why I walked in on you beating each other up," I scoff. It's not a question.

"I need to pay for what I've done!"

"Like hell!"

"Shu' up, please," I say. "I've been through too much shit today for this t'be all in vain. Kiryu, you're coming back with us."

"But I—"

" _After_ I go break the shock collars offa everybody else in tha' mine."

"Jailbreak?" Yusei sweeps dirt off of his jeans. "I'm in. I was waiting for someone to suggest it so I didn't have to say it, I'm in, let's do it."

"But we… How do we do that?" Kiryu asks. "Just the three of us? Ramon and Malcom's guys are crawling all over the inside of that mine."

"Trus' me," I say. "Give someone an inch to escape hell, an' they'll take it in a second."

He looks at me.

"Besides! Migh' as well do some good while we're here." I try to manage a smile that doesn't hurt. "Get a li'l _satisfaction_ outta it."

Yusei snorts. "That was awful. Let's go cause some trouble already."


	43. Wooden Ghosts

Nico and West are around Rua and Ruka's age (or maybe Nico is a bit older), but evidently they live in Crash Town and are about as prone to getting in trouble as the twins are back home.

They locate me, Kiryu, and Yusei before we even head back to town, and they've brought Yusei's duel runner with them. Kiryu hoists them both up into his arms, some wordless elation that they're both safe, and I take it as yet another piece of proof that Kiryu is a better man than he believes.

"Come here," Yusei says. "I don't know how much it'll help, but I do have a first-aid kit."

"Oh boy, my hero."

"Stuff it and sit down."

I sink down onto his duel runner seat as he digs around in the back compartment for the first aid kit. Kiryu, not far from us, is in conversation with the kids and looks like he's close to crying.

"They're really attached to him," Yusei says in a low voice as he comes back around to me. He was only able to pass to me their names and that he knew them when they showed up like godsends with Yusei's duel runner. "They lost their father in the mines, they don't know if he's alive. Kiryu has been looking after them."

"He's a sweetheart an' he doesn't believe himself t'be."

"He's mellowed out a lot." Yusei places the kit in my lap so that his hands are free to dig through it. "Being a Dark Signer… I know it sounds bad, but I think it helped him come into himself more. He's certainly worse for wear because of it, but he seems more hardened beyond that. Calmer."

"Trauma does tha' to a person," I murmur.

He doesn't say anything to that.

"How're you?" I ask. He peels his gloves off, rips open a little packet, and dabs at my split knuckles with one of those antibacterial cloth things. "Doing okay?"

"I'm… okay. Being here with him brings back a lot of bad memories, especially seeing how it all impacted him. I can't help him as much as I wish I could. Which is odd, considering how—how much he reminds me of you."

"Commonalities," I mutter. "I hope I can help him as much as I wanna."

"I don't know what seeing Evan would do to him. Hell, I don't know what it'd do to Evan."

"Yusei, it's real easy t'miss how badly he's still fucked up abou' it. I don't see him a lot 'cause he's always working, trying like you an' me to be busy so he doesn't hafta think abou' it. If you love someone tha' much, you don't get over them in an evening."

"It's been—almost eight months already."

"It was a figure of speech. Evan's been through a lot, Yusei, he's used t'not feeling things 'cause seeing the biggest guy in the room panic makes everybody else uneasy. So when he gets t'let shit out, it's big an' it's messy an' it's all-consuming. I know letting him see Kiryu safe an' alive again will help more than it hurts. I _know_ it will."

"Okay," he murmurs. He turns my hand over gently, looking for any more blood crusted along my fingers. "I trust you."

"I know you do. I appreciate it."

From the first aid kit, he digs out some gauze and starts to wrap my knuckles. "Tell me you at least beat up _one_ guy."

"Four of 'em, actually! I toldja most of this is from Wasting."

He sighs through his nose and ties off my hand, then starts to clean up the other one. "I'm glad you spoke up about wanting to help. Even if I had to tie up Kiryu and put him somewhere so he wouldn't leave, I was going to help these people."

"Wha', he's not into freeing… uh, slaves, essentially?"

"No, no that, he's just… He's so self-deprecating right now that he can't see any way to help anybody in this town other than punishing himself. He saw all those graves and his immediate first thought was 'I did this, I have to pay for it.' Not even thinking that, even if we can't bring those people back, we can help those of them that aren't dead yet."

"Look, don't blame him for thinking tha' way. It's a knee-jerk response t'his trauma, an' it's gonna be the way he copes. By thinking he has t'atone for everything with his life rather than his actions."

"...did you ever do that?"

"I think abou' people who were in Arcadia with me, or before me, or even _after_ me every day. I was powerless t'help even myself 'cause of how scared I was, and 'm still scared 'cause the guy who did it all is still out there. There were still people who couldn't get out."

"But it's over now. Arcadia is dead and gone. It's not coming back."

"It could."

"Silvan."

"'M testifying, Yusei."

He pauses, hands stopping over mine.

"I mailed in the paperwork two days ago, when you left. It's done, 'm doing it."

He pulls my head in against his chest, and for a long time he stands there, just kind of holding me, saying nothing.

"Are you okay?" He murmurs.

"I dunno," I admit. "But if I don't do something, they'll let him out again. It'll all be for nothing."

"It won't be for nothing. You'll win and he'll be gone and it'll finally be over. And I'll be there with you every step of the way."

"You… You don't have t'—"

"For as long as I've known you you've been there for me, Silvan, and it's the very least I can do to do the same for you all the way to the grave."

"T'the grave," I mutter.

He wraps up my other hand, then moves around behind me to look at the cuts on my back. "Most of these have scabbed over already, you're lucky they aren't that deep."

"'Kay. No stitches then?"

"No stitches. Just. Maybe put your jacket on to keep them out of the air."

He comes back around to look at my face and I keep my eyes pinned to his stern expression as his hands tilt my chin this way and that. "Your lip is likely to bruise."

"Fine. Wha'ever."

"Hold still, I can't really do much for this except clean you up a little."

He starts to wipe away, presumably, blood from my nose and mouth, his nails a gentle scratch against my skin through the cloth.

"You didn't have t'do this," I say.

"You're my friend and I care about you, Silvan, let me look after you."

"...thank you."

"You're welcome."

"YUSEI!" Both of us jolt as West comes toward us. Yusei retracts his hand from my face, and I feel embarrassingly aware of how intimate that felt.

"What's up, West?"

"Kiryu said you found this!" He dangles a drop-shaped pendant. Pretty, made of something like blue tourmaline. "Did you see my dad? Is he okay?"

Yusei pauses. "I… didn't see him in the mines. I got it on the edge of town, a couple of days ago." He looks back at me, and I can see him working through something just based on his expression. "Kiryu," he calls after a moment, "change of plans, take my duel runner."

Kiryu whips toward him. "What?"

"You take it, get back to town, find a place to hide out until I get back."

"Um, 's'cuse me," I say.

"You take Nico and West with you," he continues. "Silvan and I are going to clear out the mines."

"Oh, _heck_ yeah," I interject.

"We can take off their collars. We can help them."

"That's even less than all three of us trying to help," Kiryu argues.

"We all got this far trying to help you, so I'm not giving you the chance to put yourself back in the mine and die."

"...why are you doing this? After everything I did to you?"

"Are you _really_ asking me that like you don't already know the answer?" Yusei retorts. Suddenly he's lit up, and I jump to my feet to search for the source of the light.

Three duel runners—the one in the center is _massive_ —climb the hill toward us. Yusei says, "Kiryu, take the kids!"

He makes a grab for his helmet, and I say, "Wha's the plan?"

"Go with Kiryu, keep him out of trouble! I'll lead them away! I'll find you after!"

I flex my bandaged fingers and scoop my jacket off of the ground, slipping it on over my shoulders as I bolt after Kiryu, Nico, and West. Yusei starts up his duel runner, points its nose the other way, and bolts down the side of the mountain, the other duel runners in hot pursuit.

This is one of those "ask questions later" situations, so I just keep running after Kiryu and the kids back into the mines, hoping that Yusei doesn't do something to absolutely fuck himself over.

I'm not sure Kiryu knows where he's going, but he heads our group through a long, wide tunnel trimmed with green electric lights. I'm taking up the rear, my eyes on the back of Nico's billowing pink dress, and I almost think we're out of the woods—until the cavern lights up behind us, and I realize that the two smaller duel runners are pursuing _us_.

"I'm sorry!" Nico exclaims. "This is… our fault! They followed us!"

"It's not your fault!" Kiryu says. "This is my fight! I'm not letting you get hurt on my watch!"

And I'm sure as hell not letting _him_ get hurt.

I can feel the headlights getting hotter, the duel runners getting closer, and I can't see the end of the tunnel quite yet, so I turn, jog backward, and Waste ahead toward our pursuers as hard as I can.

It jolts them with a sound like crunching metal, and I think I've successfully stopped them for a second. It puts a bit more distance between us.

The lights cut off as we reenter the mines—and Kiryu scoops Nico and West into his arms. "Silvan, this way!"

He puts them both into a mining car; I shove him in before me, gathering up what energy I can muster, and Expel the force I need to shove the cart forward down the tracks. It gives me a running start at pushing it further, and when the cart's on a steady roll, Kiryu pulls me up and over the lip of the cart and in beside him.

"Who… Who're those guys?" I pant.

"Lotten's people," Kiryu breathes.

"'S'cuse me, _who_?"

"The Malcom Family, the other gang—the one that betrayed Yusei. Lotten's Malcom's brother, his prized duelist. The guy on the bigger duel runner was him, these are his cronies." He reaches for me all of a sudden, then flinches backward like he thought better of himself. "Sorry. You're… you're bleeding."

"'S normal," I groan, dabbing blood away from my nose. "Don't worry abou' it."

The cart whips around a corner, and instinctually, Kiryu grabs onto Nico and West. I scooch forward in the cart so I can peek up over the front. Up ahead, the track twists and turns, and I gulp. This may have been a fast escape, but it'll be a miracle if we don't tip at this speed.

"Everybody hold on!" I shout. We bounce along a series of dips in the track, and I do my best to Waste us back down into the track every time we catch too much air. By the time the track evens out again and the cart is closer to the ground, blood is gushing down my nose and there's a duel runner close enough to our rear to touch.

I crush a hand over my nose to try and staunch the bleeding, and Nico and West pop up out of the cart behind me with shards of stone in their hands.

"Go away! Leave us alone!" West hurls a massive chunk of stone at the rider about to reach us, and they let up, jostling against the rider behind them. I can hear their duel runners crunch as they hit each other.

"Hey! Get behind me!" Kiryu jumps up and attempts to wrangle them both behind him.

Nico grabs his arm. "No, Kiryu! We're helping too!"

" _Why_?"

"I watched you fight in town all the time, and you didn't give up ever!" West says. "Not on your duels, and not on us! So we're not giving up on you either!"

"You're… wrong, West, I was never really fighting! I'm here because I deserve to be! You don't know me, you don't know what I've done—"

"We know enough!" Nico shouts.

"Kiryu, if you have this many people fighting for you, how much more proof d'you need tha' you're worth it?!" I shout, voice muffled from my hand.

He locks eyes with me for a moment, looks toward the kids, and then back at the duel runners still catching up with us. Then he lunges past me, toward the brake at the front of the cart, and I lurch backward to grab onto Nico and West as we whip around a turn. Behind us, our inattentive pursuers go flying into a wall. The rock that crumbles down around them makes a deafening rumbling sound.

Kiryu breathes out, long and shaky. "Are you guys okay?"

I sniff a little. "Doin' great."

"We're okay!" West says.

"Shaken, but okay," Nico adds.

Suddenly we tremble to a stop, and under us the ground begins to spin. Nico and West sink lower into the cart, and I watch the walls pass us by as a conveyor belt takes us to another section of track.

"How big're the mines?" I ask. "Any idea?"

"There's no way to know," Kiryu answers. "They're a labyrinth, they've got a mountain over them. It's a miracle we found our way out in the first place."

"Whoa, Kiryu!" Nico, who's peeking up over the side of the cart, turns toward us just as the cart stops, and suddenly, we're all sideways. I end up somersaulting down a conveyor belt, face first into a pile of rocks.

I cough, sending dirt blowing everywhere. Kiryu plucks me out of the rubble as easily as if I were a feather and sets me on my feet. This close to me, I can see the purple rings under his eyes. The creases in his forehead, his protruding cheekbones…

"Y'look better," I say, my eyes lingering on the yellow mark cutting from his forehead down his right cheek.

"I'm a corpse, Silvan."

He flinches when I put my hand on his chest. "Then why'd I feel a heartbeat?"

He frowns, and when we turn, there's a gun barrel pointed at us. Those riders… they caught up to us. Kiryu puts his hands up right away, taking a sidestep to stand in front of Nico and West.

"That's right, don' try anything funny!" The one on the left—marked, wearing a red bandana—pokes the barrel of his sawed-off shotgun a little further toward us. "Dunno how the fuck you got those collars off, but if you give us any funny business, you get a shock gun to the throat, y'hear?"

 _Shock_ gun. Not a real gun. But… Fuck me, that's just as bad. Thinking about it puts a bad taste in my mouth, but it also makes me _angry_.

Out in front of us, seemingly suspended in the orange electric lights around the cavern, I can see scores of workers. Prisoners. Some of them have paused to watch us and see what the commotion is about. Three other mine carts on the other end of the cavern are lined up to be filled with stone, but one is empty and still sits on a length of track. On every wooden scaffolding traveling around the circumference of the cave, I can see more red-clad onlookers. Members of Malcom's gang, and effectively prison guards.

I can start something here. I could free these people and start a riot, even, but Nico and West are in the middle of it. Maybe I could stick them and Kiryu on that cart, over across the way, and hope the track goes somewhere better.

I don't have a lot of time to plan it; I put myself right in front of Kiryu, between him, the kids, and both of the gun barrels. "Why don'tcha try it, dumb motherfuckers."

They exchange a look, and one pokes his barrel so close that it touches my forehead. "What'd you say?!"

I grab his arm. "I said _fuck off_."

Electricity dances off of my skin, crackling so loudly that somebody in the cavern cries out, afraid, maybe, that someone got their collar activated.

The first guard crumples, and the second fires. My lightning courses forward and swallows the blast from the gun, then it swallows the second guard. I whirl toward Kiryu and the children, who look effectively astonished, and point across the cavern. "Run for the mine car, the rightmost one!"

Kiryu doesn't ask questions. He scoops up one of the downed guards' shock guns and bolts after Nico and West, who are gunning for the mine cart. On my way after them, I reach my hand out and Waste off every collar I see.

"WAIT!" Someone, one of the miners, bolts after us. "Nico! West!"

Nico stops in her tracks and turns. West has reached the mine cart, but isn't inside yet. The man makes it over to us and Nico, before throwing herself at him, shrieks, " _DAD_!"

Then West goes running, too. Kiryu raises his shock gun to fire at two more guards who have come down from their scaffoldings. Those that lost their collars have raised up their pickaxes to fight back.

"You GUYS!" Kiryu shouts. More of Malcom's people are filing down from the tunnels on the level above us. "We have to go!"

"But our dad!" Nico exclaims.

"Bring him too! Everyone in the cart, come on!"

I pile in after Nico, West, and their dad, letting Kiryu push us off this time. I need the energy; I raise my hand one more time as Kiryu hops into the cart with us, imagining that I have thousands of little hands extending out of my fingertips, and I Waste open every collar I can feel.

It takes so much out of me that I black out for a second; I open my eyes to find that we're in a different stretch of tunnel, and my head's leaned against Kiryu's shoulder. I rub at blood, presumably, crusted around both of my nostrils, and I have to lean over the side of the cart to spit some out of my mouth.

"Are you okay?" Kiryu holds onto my arm. "I… I never saw Evan do this."

"Long story," I wheeze. "Another time." I slip back into the cart, squished between Kiryu and Nico, to catch my breath. After a moment of silence, when I see that Nico and West's pale, frightened father is still wearing his collar, I raise a hand to Waste it open. My head throbs in response.

"Stop doing that," Kiryu says sharply. "No more hurting yourself."

"Take your own advice," I breathe.

He frowns at me—now a pretty familiar expression for him—and goes to stand by the brake in case we come up too fast on any more turns. I lean back against the inside of the mine car, trying to gasp air into my ruined lungs, and I think I black out again, because the next thing I know, Nico is shouting for me.

I bolt upward, trying not to lose my balance, and dive for Kiryu, who for some reason is trailing behind the cart. Nico has her hands on Kiryu and West, bless his heart, is trying to pull Nico back in with us. I reach, grab onto Kiryu's arm, and pull, and Nico and West's father pulls me back by the shoulders to give one last hand. All five of us tumble backward into the cart, and Kiryu lands beside me panting like he just ran a mile.

"You… you saved me," he gasps. "Thank you."

Nico and West's father says, "You saved me, too, kid."

"No, don't…" Kiryu shakes his head. "I'm probably the reason you're in here, don't you understand?"

"No. I would've remembered losing to you." He leans back against the cart. "I came to this town a long, long time ago looking to stop losing everything I had. Really, a lot of people come here with the same wish I had, looking for a place to die."

I watch that register on Kiryu's face.

"Even I heard about you, though, kid. Ramon's Handless Demon. The Grim Reaper. But, you kept winning. Living. You have a stronger will to live than most of us."

Kiryu, his lips a thin line, totters to his feet and stands at the brake again, saying nothing. I shake my head, wishing I knew what he was thinking. "Hey, thanks."

"Thank _you_." He extends a hand. "I'm Sergio."

"Silvan," I say, reaching for him.

"What you did to the collars… what is that? How do you do it?"

"I have these... powers. 'S tough t'explain. We're called psychics back in Neo Domino."

"Amazing! Sure comes in handy in a pinch, though…" His gaze lingers on my face just a little too long. "Nasty side effects."

"Y'have _no_ idea."

Nico says, "Did you come with Yusei?"

"He called me, asked me t'come. I've been looking for Kiryu for a long time. Almost eight months."

"You have?"

"He's an important friend of mine," I say. "Yusei, too. We're not abou' t'let him go it alone."

Kiryu, as if to keep us from continuing to talk about him, shouts, "There's a fork up ahead!"

Sergio pops up beside him, and I crawl toward the back of the cart to peek up over the back. "Hey, we're still being followed!"

"Go right," Sergio instructs. "Right will take us out of the mine."

"Right, got it—"

We lurch to the _left_ , and Kiryu curses. "They switched the track!"

We're racing down through a tunnel that opens up to track set up around an expansive cylindrical cavern. To my left, the drop is so far that I can't see the bottom. Nico and West cling to me as Kiryu and Sergio try to figure out what to do next.

I think we must be about halfway down the first stretch of descent, and I must spot the busted track below us at the same time as Kiryu, because almost a second later, Sergio, to his right, exclaims, "There's a switch down there! If we can manually pull the lever, we can get back into the tunnel system!"

"We're going too fast for that! If we brake, we'll be caught!"

There's a bit of silence for a moment while everyone presumably tries to formulate a plan. Then Sergio scoops a stone out of the bottom of the cart, stows it in his jumpsuit, and says, "Kiryu, take care of my kids."

"Are you—insane?!"

"Let me do this, let me save my kids and show them I can be a capable father."

"You're plenty capable—"

I'm too weak to do anything about it; Sergio dives out of the cart, down below us, and Nico and West are screaming. I have no clue what happened to him until we come around the next bend of track and I can see him below us, hanging from the lever. He struggles with it, trying to shove it up to the other end of its axis, which looks difficult, given the angle he's dangling at.

We're getting closer and closer to him, and my heart's up in my throat, when at last he resets the track, but he loses his grip. Nico and West are shouting for him, and I reach out like I can catch him, searching for anything left in me, anything left I can use to save him, but only blood jets out from between my lips, and we turn the corner into the tunnel network again, leaving Sergio behind.

Kiryu anchors me backward by my shoulders, and when I turn to look at him, he looks as though his soul has escaped his body. Ice seems to creep at my fingers, at that thought. That a man just gave his life and his children to us and I was too weak to do anything about it.

I lean backward into Kiryu, trying to catch my breath, swallowing blood, and manage to say, "Wasn't your fault."

He doesn't reply.

A second later, we're all getting thrown to the ground as the cart tips us over in another work area, but this one is curiously empty.

Kiryu springs to his feet, surveys the look of the tunnel opening and the cavern, and demands, "Over here."

Nico and West (bravely) scurry after him, and we follow Kiryu's lead as he presses his back to the wall beside the tunnel opening. Waiting for our pursuers.

I put an arm around Nico and West—trying not to replay Sergio's sacrifice in my head—and in this deafening quiet, I can hear the duel runner getting closer.

Then, almost quicker than I can process it, the nose of the enemy runner enters the cavern and Kiryu dives into the driver, taking them out of their seat. The duel runner crunches against a tall stone near a scaffolding, and Kiryu's there again, hoisting the person in the sidecar out and over himself. One punch each, and they're out cold.

I guess it's easy for me to forget what I know about Kiryu's history—where he came from, how strong he must be.

He heaves the duel runner up out of the rubble and rolls it over to us. "Everybody get in."

Nico lifts herself into the sidecar, setting West in her lap, and I slide on behind Kiryu. When I hold on to him, I can feel how prominent his ribs are.

Now we're off, back into the tunnels, and in a much better place than we were five minutes ago. I even have my cards, should we need to fight our way out. But I can still hear Nico and West sniffling.

"Hey, you two," Kiryu calls above the wind whipping past us. "Your dad… your dad did a really brave thing. And because of him, we all got to stay alive. I'm going to keep you safe for him, all right? We're all getting out of here alive."

Nico's face is shiny with tears, and she's holding West close, but she peers up at us with an adamant sort of expression—determined. These kids, I take it, are the key to putting life back into Kiryu. And I'm grateful to them for that.

Up ahead, I swear I hear another duel runner. We come out into a more spacious cavern, where down below, I can see a familiar shiny red duel runner. The walls around us are shiny with light: Speed World 2.

"Hold on, everybody!" Kiryu shouts. I press my cheek in against his spine, and we ramp off of our road down beside Yusei, cutting off the massive duel runner racing after him—Lotten, Malcom's prized duelist, Kiryu called him.

"Nice of you to show up!" Yusei shouts. "Everybody doing okay?"

"More or less! Your girlfriend won't stop bleeding everywhere!" Kiryu shouts.

"Oh, please, he wishes!" I retort.

Yusei flips us both off. It's a good sign, I think, that we're all in the mood for joking around. Maybe this time we're _really_ almost in the clear.

"You're not leaving this mountain alive, fuckin' punks!" A voice from behind says. Lotten, almost certainly. My heart cants upward into my throat when a shadow creeps over us, and I realize that Lotten's duel runner has risen up and over us on extending axles.

Then, suddenly, we're airborne.

Something blasted a hole in the side of the mountain, and I squint at the sunrise. I feel floaty, much less like I'm plummeting hundreds of meters off of a mountain.

Nico and West are—too far away for me to grab. Kiryu, too. I'm trying to think quickly, trying not to lose my grip on myself and pass out. The wind seeps into my fingertips, chilling me to the bone; as fast as I Internalized, I Expel and propel myself into Kiryu, wrangling an arm around his waist. I take in heat and light, wind and breath, and as we fall past quarry rocks, plummeting fast off of the cliffside, I barrel into Yusei and wrangle my other arm around him. If only I could have done this for Sergio. But if I had, I wouldn't be here to do it for Yusei and Kiryu.

When we hit the ground, we hit _hard_. I've never Internalized this much force before. My spine feels like it's bending much farther than it should be able to from the pressure, and I know I would have broken it if I wasn't blessed with this gift. I can't imagine what Kiryu and Yusei would have broken if _I_ hadn't broken this fall.

Time sort of—slips away from me, and I lie there feeling completely inert, sunlight dancing in my half-useless eyes. I shut them for I-don't-know-how-long, feeling so heavy and tired. Ghostly and strewn out and almost like part of the earth.

"...Oh gods, please talk to me. Please. Hey, Silvan, wake up. Please. _Hey_."

I blink away how blurry everything is and try to focus on Yusei and his hand pressed to my cheek. I stretch upward a little, and my shoulder cracks in response. Who the hell knows how long I've been lying here. "...everybody okay?" My voice sounds hoarse.

His eyes roll back in his head a little as he breathes a sigh of relief. "Christ. I should be asking _you_ that."

"But are you?"

"I'm fine. Because of you, I…" he shakes his head a little. "We're fine."

Kiryu, groaning, crawls over to us on his knees and elbows. "What… What did you do? Why aren't we dead?"

I scoff. "Wha', Evan never Internalized all your hot air?"

Yusei chuckles a little. He must be giddy, at this point, after surviving that fall.

Kiryu, his face bright red, says, "What, his powers? He never—never had a name for them. And he sure as hell never saved any of us from plummeting a hundred-some meters into a _gorge_."

"It's—called Internalizing. It's where my electricity came from, I… I can… I can absorb energy for later."

"You absorbed the impact," Kiryu says, sounding dumbfounded.

"Yeah." My spine audibly pops as I try to sit up. "All tha'… force, tha's…" I lean on my left elbow and lift quivering fingers. "It's all in here."

Yusei closes his hand around mine. "Okay, don't try to get up so quickly now. Take your time."

"'M fine, 'm fine…"

" _Christ_ ," he repeats as he tries to help me shift my weight. "If that really was a hundred meters, and we're, what…" I see him looking between us, calculating. "That's anywhere between fifty and seventy five thousand joules of energy. And with all three of us, _Christ_."

"It… Feels like the higher end of tha'," I gasp; some invisible weight shoves me down again, into the dust. I would have hit my head again, had Yusei not caught me.

"You can _feel_ it?"

"Like… a flippin' rock on my chest."

"Here, I'll get you up. Come on." He slips an arm under me and hoists me up off of the ground, one hand curled under my legs and the other anchoring my back. "I didn't know you could _feel_ it."

"All the time," I pant. "It's jus'… never enough for it t'be more than an afterthought. Easily ignored."

I'm so close to his throat now that I can hear him swallow. "...even the static?"

"Always. More than anything else."

Kiryu's a few feet from us, turning over Yusei's duel runner. "Ah, damn. Yusei, this thing took on a hell of a dent."

I see this twinge of pain in Yusei's expression at that, presumably as he hopes the damage isn't _too_ horrible. "It can be fixed," he says. "People can't."

"Hammer 'n a blowtorch," I say. "Easy peasy."

Yusei blanches, which makes me laugh (at least until my aching chest makes me start to cough). "Careful," he retorts. "I can't believe I told you to come here."

"'S'cuse me, I saved your life."

"Fair. But if you could see yourself in a mirror right now."

"That's not a very nice thing to say to one of the prettiest women you know, Yusei," Kiryu says.

"I—yeah, fuck you!" I say, still half astonished that Kiryu _actually_ complimented me.

"What—you don't—since when do you know at all what women I'm friends with?"

"I'm gay, not blind."

At this point, I'm laughing so hard that I start wheezing, and then I'm just trying to catch my breath. "We—fell offa cliff, guys!"

"...yeah," Yusei says. "Are you okay?"

"Yes! Are… Are you? We fell off a cliff an' you're _joking aroun'_!"

"Well, yes." Kiryu tosses his hands up. "I wanted to die this morning, Silvan. And I almost just did, but not before everyone and their father tried to save my life. Including you two, who I pretty _directly_ tried to hurt. After all this, everything with Nico and West and their dad… I think for the first time in a while I feel pretty good to be standing up." Almost instantly, the lightness fades from his face. "Nico and West. Where are Nico and West? I don't see them anywhere!"

"Good," I remark. "I couldn't reach 'em, tha' means they prob'ly didn't fall through the gorge. They prob'ly landed up above the cliff, which prob'ly only bruised 'em, if they landed right."

"We need to find a way up to the top. We need to find them."

"Okay, okay. Let me get my duel runner running," Yusei says. "We'll have a better chance at finding a way up to them if we're moving fast."

While Kiryu passes back and forth, looking for Nico and West (on the off chance they, too, fell through the gorge), Yusei sets me on the seat of his duel runner and tries to get it up and running again. He's half mumbling to himself the whole time, moaning and groaning about the dent in the side and how the WRGP is coming and how much time he's going to have to fix it. I wait with my hands pressed to my stomach, trying to get used to the feeling of all this force on my shoulders.

"Okay, Kiryu!" Yusei waves his arms around to get Kiryu's attention from where he is, far enough away that I almost can't see him anymore. We wait for him to trudge back over, then, together, the three of us load onto Yusei's duel runner and search for a way out.

I sit squashed between Kiryu and Yusei, my head pressed to Yusei's spine and my tailbone poking Kiryu in his stomach. It's uncomfortable, but I sure as hell won't be falling off.

After driving for a long way in the direction of the sun, we find that the ground level rises just enough beneath us that we can off-road up and out of the gorge. It's a bumpy ride, but Yusei is a good driver, and within minutes we're back below the mountain and I'm blinking sun out of my eyes.

The bad news is, as far as we can see and as far as we go searching, there's no sign of Nico and West.

Kiryu looks like he's ready to tear out his own hair when we dismount near the mine's mass gravesite. "Lotten, he must've—dammit!"

"We can come up with a plan," Yusei points out. "The town isn't free yet. Not until Lotten's given up."

"He probably thinks we're dead," Kiryu says. "There's no way we would have survived that fall if circumstances had been different."

Yusei crosses his arms. "...I'm prepared to fight Lotten. I've been prepared to free this town since I got here. What are you going to do, Kiryu?"

"What am… well, I'll tell you what I'm _not_ going to do, and it's end up down there." He points out toward the gravesite. "Too much has been sacrificed because of me. Today and in months past."

"The past is over with, Kiryu. How many times do I need to tell you that I've long forgiven you?"

"Maybe I won't be so lucky with the others," Kiryu remarks. "But I'm done trying to atone for it with my life."

"Good," I say. "Mission accomplished."

"With any luck—or bad luck—Nico and West will be down there," Yusei says.

"With Lotten?" Kiryu retorts. "If he lays a hand on them, he's a dead man."

"Okay, good, use that energy for something constructive."

"I still have t'hunt down my duel runner," I say. "It's… somewhere."

"You _lost_ your _duel runner_?"

"I didn't know wha' I was gonna be doing, okay?"

"All right." Yusei rubs at his temples. "Okay. Let's make a plan. We need to take down Lotten."

"Barbara and Malcom will probably be there, too," Kiryu points out.

"Okay, we need to take down Lotten, Barbara, _and_ Malcom in order to clear out the mines." Yusei starts tallying on his fingers. "We need to find Nico and West, make sure they're okay. Silvan needs to find her duel runner. Anything else?"

"I think tha' covers it," I say.

"I can handle Lotten," Kiryu declares.

"Nice sentiment," Yusei retorts, "but I almost couldn't back in the mine. We'll have a better chance if we take him on together."

"Losing faith in my abilities, hm?"

"Let's average our track records, then ask me that again." Yusei shakes his head a little. "There's still Malcom and Barbara."

"Malcom's spineless," Kiryu says. "He'll run. Barbara, on the other hand, is pretty ballsy, but she doesn't duel, and I don't know how I feel about hitting a woman. Even a cruddy one."

"I'll do it," I say. "My fists're unisex."

"Your fists are _bandaged_."

"Yeah, but 'm kinda the only other member of our team here. I'll find my duel runner an' pick off Malcom, then Barbara."

"All right, that's the plan then," Yusei finishes. "Silvan finds her duel runner and cuts off Malcom and Barbara while we take down Lotten."

"Only one problem," Kiryu says, jaw visibly clenched. "No high-stakes dueling allowed in town until sunset."

Yusei doesn't even pause. "Great! I'm taking a nap, wake me up at dusk." He props his duel runner up, plops down against it, and shucks his jacket off. I think he's going to use it as a blanket, but he drapes it over his head instead, presumably to shield himself from the rising sun.

Kiryu exhales. "I'm going to look for my grave."

"Your… grave?"

He nods. "Want to come?"

I don't know what he means, but I follow. "Yusei, we'll be righ' back."

I slide down the hill, into the gravesite with Kiryu. Together, we weave through inert dueling revolvers. This town's headstones.

"When you lose a duel," he explains, "they nab your revolver and anything else on you. Valuables, they sell. Nonvaluables mark your grave with your disk. So they can find it when the time comes to bury your body."

" _Amazing_."

Kiryu scoffs. He weaves in between these makeshift headstones with purpose, almost like some solemn danse macabre. I follow him silently, picking my way around every sideways-tilted revolver, until Kiryu finally speaks.

"How is he?"

The question bounces around in me for a second. "He's like me."

"I know. I can tell."

"...he works a lot. 'S what I mean. He works a lot t'distract himself."

"Sounds like him." I can hear the hint of emotion that manages to bleed into his voice. "It's…. because of me, then?"

"Well. A lot of things. But you're a big part in there all righ'. We… don't really talk abou' you. I know it'd hurt him too much, so I just. Decided I'd look for ya on my own."

"He—He doesn't know you're here?"

"I didn't wanna put him through tha'." I pause. "'M not sure you're in a position to be put through tha' either."

"But why? Why would you come looking for me? For _him_? Don't you know that I've only ever hurt either of you? Even if I begged, would he forgive me?"

"I think he would!"

"Really? So, in eight months, he definitely strikes you as the forgiving type?"

"He strikes me," I say slowly, fists balled, "as the type who had t'pretend he was okay with all his friends leaving him, who had t'make some tough fuckin'choices on his own, an' who doesn't know how t'handle himself if he can't get mad sometimes. If there's an apology on the table, an' if it's from _you_ , I don't think you need t'worry." I squint at him. "An' I think tha' eight months is _plenty_ _of time_ for a person t'change."

He looks back at me just a little too long—I can see that I struck a chord. We've both changed since the last time we met.

"Why do you have any faith in me?" He asks. "I lied to you. I pretty much kidnapped you. I locked you up."

"You were half-mad an' possessed by the spirit of a primordial demon. I think y'have an excuse."

"Is that really your justification for it? I had something else in me that made me do all of those things?" He shakes his head. "I wasn't just looking through my own eyes, Silvan. All of it was real. All of it was me. I made those plans, I did what I wanted to up until that very last fight."

"I see you now, Kiryu, an' I see you fighting and doing wha' you know is righ'," I say. "Tha's not the same person you were last time. I know you're different, an' I know you're better. It's like I said. If you're willing t'atone, you can always come back."

"What if—what if he doesn't want me?"

"He will," I murmur.

"But what if he doesn't?"

"Kiryu, is it so hard t'believe tha' you can still be loved?"

His frown deepens. "Maybe."

"We're the same. Kiryu, more than you know. An' I wanna help you. Please _let_ me."

He shakes his head a little, but he stops short and I realize he must have found what he's looking for. He snags a dusty black overcoat off of a revolver grave and slips it on, kicking dirt off of its tail. Then he wrenches the revolver out of the loose earth and slips it into his coat.

"Do you think you can be loved, Silvan?" He asks.

The question catches me off-guard. I don't say anything for a moment, mostly because I'm contemplating what I _should_ say.

"And don't lie. Not for my sake. If we're the same, I just… would like to know."

I wring my hands. "Maybe. Eventually. _Someday_."

"Someday?"

"I… find myself unable t'feel a lot of the time. If I could ever be loved, I'd—I'd wanna feel it for myself. 'S'not real t'me otherwise."

He breathes out through his nose. "Okay. That's fair."

"But, like… at least 'm alive to try an' figure it all out. Y'know?"

He nods, slowly at first. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess so."

For a while more, we wander the gravesites, and I send silent prayers off into the universe for the souls of all these people, sent to die in the mines. From exhaustion? From malnourishment? From the shock collars? Who knows. Afterward, Kiryu and I trek back up the hill to wait the long hot day for sundown.

We sit together, dozing off once or twice as we watch the sun make its arc in the sky. At some point, Yusei wakes up and joins us, and the three of us at last watch the sun start its descent toward the western horizon. Then, we all cram back onto Yusei's duel runner and start toward the town. We drop Kiryu off in the West, Yusei leaves me in the East, and he resolves to come at the town from the South.

I creep around, alley to alley, Specifying as I go. No one in this town is psychic, but at the very least, I can pick up if there's a person around the corner from me. If I end up running into anyone, I'll need to fight them and hope I can actually hold my ground. Any second now, the sun will start to set and Yusei and Kiryu will challenge Lotten. Hopefully, that ruckus will draw everyone else to the center of town so that I can safely locate my duel runner.

Mercifully? This place seems pretty empty. Remarkably, even. Lotten must have sent some of his own cronies to the mines to make up for the loss of opponents. Or Kiryu and Yusei have gotten to him and stirred up a fuss. Maybe both.

Either way? It takes me an excruciatingly long time to find my baby. It's far from where it used to be, propped up in an alleyway near a saloon strung up with red banners. There are so many bottles littered across my dashboard that I get angry, and I start throwing them at the saloon. I don't even know how many times I walk around the outside of it, making sure whoever lugged it over here didn't scratch it. I'm definitely hot waxing it when I get home.

It still starts up without a hitch, which is good. No one tried to scour it for parts. I doubt many people around here know how to handle a duel runner, anyways, with the fucking lawnmowers some of the people in the mines were driving.

I come back up around the same way I came, Hiraeth in tow, to try and figure out what's happening in the center of town—how Yusei and Kiryu might be faring. I've lost track of time, and I can't see the sun from here, so who knows how much duel has passed?

There's commotion, though—screaming, in fact—when I slink back up into the southeastern part of town, trying to maneuver through as many tiny dark alleys as possible to keep cover. The brighter it gets, the closer I know I'm getting to the center of town.

When I get there, I find the beginnings of a fucking massacre.

Lotten is there, holding a shotgun. A _real_ one. Sawed off, double barrel, like the shock guns, but it's smoking and I can see someone (red scarf, undoubtedly one of Lotten's own people) curled up on the ground bleeding. I've read enough novels and seen enough movies to know that, the closer you are, the more effective a shotgun shell is.

He points the gun toward Yusei and Kiryu, waving it a little as he aims. My heart leaps up into my throat. "Now, to get this place back under my control—starting with you two!"

Before I can even consider the consequences of what I'm doing, I'm running. The first shot rings out, and I hear it crack through the air. The next thing I hear is Yusei, screaming my name at the top of his lungs, and then I'm blinking aimlessly, straight upward, at the pink sky.

The shot hit me in the chest, right between my collarbones, ripping a hole in my shirt. I sit up, my ears ringing, and peel it off of my skin. It hit me so hard I'm almost certain I'll bruise, but I'm made of a metal of my own. There, sitting in my open palm, the bullet is as flat as a coin.

Lotten's face instantly goes ashen. "What… what the fuck!"

He fires again. This time, it hits me in the shoulder, and I lurch backward, hitting my head against Yusei's chest, but otherwise I hold fast.

What if I could get a hand on the gun when it fires? Would I be able to take in more energy like that?

Heaving myself onto my feet, I take another shot to the arm. His aim's getting worse. I can only hope that Yusei and Kiryu stay behind me as I trudge forward, bullets clattering off of me as I Internalize their impacts. From here, I see a woman who must be Barbara—she's curvy and curly-haired, and she's holding a bullwhip in one hand. She's the only other woman I think I've seen here so far. Near her, I spot Nico and West, safe, mercifully, but bound with rope to a tall wooden post. There are too many red-clad men around for me to guess at which one might be Malcom.

When I'm close enough to touch Lotten, a shot jostles off my stomach and knocks the wind out of me. It sends me to my knees. Then, as he fires into my outstretched hand, the gun crumples like paper underneath my fingertips.

Lotten, visibly pale, yanks his hand backward and raises the gun in a windup. I scramble to my feet and fall back into a ready stance to try and fight back.

Then something goes flying, knocking the remnants of the gun out of Lotten's hand. I watch it clatter to the baked earth a few feet away from us. It's… a rock?

"Hey! Looks like I made it up here just in time!"

Oh holy _shit_. I whirl, searching for the voice and the source of the lobbed rock, and not far from us, I spy Crow on the roof of a building. His legs hang carelessly over an awning, and he's fiddling with another flat stone.

" _Crow_?" I hear Kiryu say.

Barbara moves first after that, yanking Nico and West away from the post, their hands still tied together. Kiryu shoulders past me, but Barbara points her whip at him. "Don't come any closer, Kiryu."

Then Jack appears, seemingly out of nowhere, and wrenches the whip out of Barbara's hands. One shove and she's on the ground, far enough away from the kids to no longer be a threat. They scramble around Jack, who looks like a giant in the foreground of the setting sun. "As a gentleman, I don't make it my hobby to lay a hand on a woman unless she's laid hers on a child."

Barbara flings herself onto her feet (Kiryu was right about her being ballsy), but as she moves, her arm sticks in the air as if she were a doll being positioned. My heart rises even higher in my throat. I know exactly what this feeling is.

Barbara screams, and I think she might even be thrashing if she could move a muscle. My brother, behind her, is a titan in this light, his brown leather jacket shiny from the sunset, his wind-blown blond hair like white fire. "Please, continue fighting me. The more energy you expend, the more of it I get to keep."

Holy shit. He's—He's Wasting and Internalizing at the same time. Taking Barbara's expended energy straight off of her as she struggles in his grip. Holy _shit_.

Kiryu is close enough to me that I can feel him become still and stony, watching this. Watching him.

Jack, still holding the whip, meets me and Kiryu where we stand, joined almost right away by Crow. Evan steps around Barbara as if she were a piece of furniture.

Yusei, reaching us, asks, "What are you all doing here?"

Jack claps me on the shoulder. I try to hide my wince. "Silvan left us some instructions."

"You… did _what_?"

"Silvan gave us 24 hours," Crow fills in, grinning. "Said if we didn't hear from her, we should bring the cavalry."

"Which, by the way?" Jack calls across the way to Lotten, who's stumbling to his feet. "We called in a few buddies from Security who're clearing out your stupid mines. Good luck trying to run anything in this place."

Lotten's scowling, but a second later it turns into a grin and I know something's wrong. All of a sudden, the buildings facing us go up in flames as a string of explosions rocks the earth. If Lotten set these up… then the mountain explosion must have been his doing, too.

The debris, though, flies harmlessly off of some invisible wall in front of us. My brother stands, silent and solemn, as smoke and fire and wind swirl inward toward him, dissipating as they touch him.

The smoke splits to let Lotten's massive duel runner ramp off into the distance. Kiryu turns on his heel and goes running after him, waving away the smoke. Yusei shouts at him to take his duel runner. The smoke, just as quickly as it appeared, vanishes into the tips of Evan's fingers. I've never seen him exert his power like this.

Barbara's still frozen, having been abandoned by Lotten, and she looks a mix between horrified and livid. Evan throws her a careless look, inclines his head a bit, and Barbara crumples.

I'm completely in awe of him, until he looks at me and I feel physically smaller after seeing how angry he looks. "What were you thinking?" he asks, his voice a quiet sort of heavy I've never heard. "Coming here alone? Taking all these risks?"

"'M okay," I murmur.

"Have you seen yourself Silvan? You're bloody and bandaged, and now you're full of holes!"

"Hey," Yusei interjects. "Lay off of her—"

Evan turns on him. "You don't get to talk! You followed a completely random thread to the middle of nowhere for nearly nothing!"

"Fine, yell at me," he says. "I came here first, I called Silvan, I'm the reason we're here. But I did it—"

"Yeah, why do you think I'm angry?! You're all here because of me!"

"I'm here because I was brash and thoughtless, I'll admit that," Yusei tells him. "I stayed because Silvan's been looking for Kiryu for months. Because she cares about you and she's been worried about you, and she's done nothing in the past couple of days except risk herself. She's saved our lives twice in the past day alone. If you're going to rip someone a new one for all this, leave her out of it."

Evan cuts his eyes to me.

"'M sorry," I say. "'M sorry if I worried you. But I don't regret coming here."

His mouth becomes a thin line. "You look horrible and you sound like you have a cold."

"I'll sleep through the weekend if it makes y'feel any better."

Yusei puts his hand on my shoulder and turns me around. "Are you okay after those shots?"

"Yeah, 'm fine. I promise," I say, my eyes stuck on his worried, furrowed eyebrows.

"You scared the shit out of me when you jumped in front of us like that."

"Yeah, me too," Evan retorts.

"I'll be okay. I jus' need t'. Get used t'it. Y'know? Let the bruises go away."

"But, hey, way to be a badass, Silvan!" Crow says. "Walkin' all slow straight into the bad guy's gun, I was geeking out about it!"

"Oh, thanks. 'M gonna need t'ice my whole body."

"Is that Kiryu?" Jack asks. The five of us look ahead towards the west end of the town, where a plume of dust is rising in the distance. When it gets closer, I can see the glint of the sun off of Yusei's red duel runner as it approaches us. Kiryu stops just before the crossroads in the center of the town, then tosses what looks like an unconscious Lotten off of the back of the runner. Barbara makes this distressed noise from where's she's pressed into the dirt.

"It's been a while!" Crow calls, grinning.

Kiryu peels Yusei's helmet off and sets it down on the duel runner. He looks like he's going to swallow his tongue. "Yeah, it—it has."

"It's good to see you," Jack adds. "You know, as you."

Yusei, who's a little out of Kiryu's line of vision, motions for Jack to cut out the Dark Signer references.

"I'm… Sorry about all of that." He shifts a little. I know that this heavy silence is all of us waiting. Watching. Looking for what's going to happen when my brother decides to make a move.

Kiryu, his shoulders tensed up, starts over to us. His coat whips dust at his feet around. He stops not far from us, and after a second of silence, Evan starts toward him. I feel frozen in that moment, watching the two of them meet again, as if for the first time. Kiryu watches him warily, fingers twitching; I'm familiar with that movement now, seeing him not sure if he's allowed to touch someone else.

Evan, then, is the one to touch him first. He puts a hand on Kiryu's cheek, and I see his shoulders relax. "Fuck. You're here."

Kiryu puffs up a little, like he's trying to put on a brave face, but his voice cracks when he says, "Hey, you."

They crumple together, linked arms, heads on shoulders, down onto the dusty ground, and I feel so relieved that I could cry.

A hand presses to me, skimming up the side of my neck through my hair, searching for my scar; I know it's Yusei before he speaks. "You okay?"

"Better than ever," I murmur.

For this, for something like happiness for my brother after such a long time, I would do that all again. I would do it all again.


	44. Everything and Nothing

I can't decide whether or not being home alone is a blessing or a curse. On the one hand, Evan doesn't moan and groan to me about how I shouldn't be sleeping on the floor, but on the other hand, there's also no one to help me up.

It's harder to stand now, even, with all I Internalized in Crash Town. It's been a few days since then, and I'm good at adjusting fast, so forgetting about the constant pressure has been easy. Getting up, however, reminds me just how much is weighing down inside of me.

Evan's not home, nor has he been since we all came back from the desert. He's staying in Crash Town for a little bit. Or, "Satisfaction Town," I suppose, it's been renamed. After all the bullshit with Lotten, Ushio popped up with half of the Bureau on his tail, cleared out the mines, and booked Lotten, Barbara, and half the Malcom Family. I'm pretty sure they located Sergio at the bottom of the mine, too. Broken arm, but alive. Everybody got something of a happy ending. Everybody who deserved one, at least.

Really the biggest takeaway for me is that Kiryu and Evan are together, back in Satisfaction Town, and Ushio left a task force to help establish a better work system for those living there. Those people are going to get the help they deserve, and my brother and Kiryu are going to get the time together that they need. I only hope that they'll mend back together as evenly as they can.

I, on the other hand. I'm still on the floor. And it's almost eight PM.

I've been lying here for hours, since I came home from work, telling myself that I need to shower and make something to eat but I need to get up before I shower and shower before I eat and I can't do any of those things until I get up but I can't get up—

I roll over onto my side. The pressure from landing that fall gyrates around in me like a rock in my ribcage. Someday I'll stand up.

I'm an arm's length away from the coffee table, though, which means it's not a terrible effort to reach for my cell phone when I hear it buzz.

 **Yusei Fudo:** _hey can i get a favor_

 **Silvan Levine:** _danger words_

 **Yusei Fudo:** _oh ha ha_

 **Yusei Fudo:** _would you mind coming to pick me and bruno up_

 **Silvan Levine:** _um?_

 **Yusei Fudo:** _long story ill explain_

 **Yusei Fudo:** _we are. in satellite. eastern coast a little ways from daedalus_

Well, I guess now I _have_ to get up. I take a second to muster up an inhale and the effort it's going to take me to heave myself up onto my feet. I've learned that this energy seems to move—spread—and as I totter up to standing, I can feel the pressure coursing from the crown of my head down to my toes.

I don't really know why I haven't found somewhere to Expel it yet—only that something in me is telling me to keep it, just in case. Just in case I need it.

The sun's long set, and the ride to Satellite is chilly. Wind bites at my legs through the rips in my jeans, and I zip my jacket to brace what I can of myself against the cold.

Miraculously, I manage to locate Yusei and Bruno on the shore in the dark. They're only partly illuminated by street neon from the city across the sound.

"What the fuck are you doing in Satellite without your duel runner?" I retort.

"It's—gods, it's a story."

"Oh! Silvan!" Bruno chirps, like he's just noticed me. "Hi!"

I have to take a second for that one. "...hey, Bruno."

"Don't worry," Yusei says, noticing the pause. "He's pretty out of it."

"Yeah, I could tell! You guys wanna get on before I freeze to death?"

Mercifully, my duel runner has an exposed back, much like the Blackbird, so Bruno has no trouble loading on behind Yusei. Driving two other people besides myself does something unusual to how I'm used to driving—turns are harder, and I find myself slowing down a lot earlier than normal for stops—but thankfully we make it back to Poppo Time in one piece.

"You wanna come in for coffee, Silvan?" Bruno offers as he dismounts.

"Don't offer her caffeine right before bed," Yusei groans.

"You know I don't sleep like a regular person," I retort. "Thanks, Bruno, I'd love some."

He beams. "Evan's still out of the house, right? I'm sure you'd like some company."

"Yeah—thank you."

"Come bring your duel runner in around back, we have plenty of room," Yusei offers, his expression softening. He follows me around through the back alley, and Bruno goes in through the front door.

"You sound better," he starts. "Your lip still looks pretty nasty, though."

"Oh, don't remind me. It doesn't hurt as much as it did a couple days ago, mostly just when I touch it, but I've been putting a salve on it literally every time I get the chance."

"Well, that's good. At least it doesn't still hurt." He shoves the garage door upward. "How're the knuckles?"

"Scabbed. I'm putting a salve on them, too, and changing the bandages every morning, but I have to be careful about breaking them open."

He frowns. I roll my duel runner into the garage and set it in between the Yuusei Go and the Wheel of Fortune. The Blackbird is missing, so I assume Crow's on a late shift. Bruno is already at the kitchenette, warming up the coffee maker.

"So, are you ever gonna tell me what you were doing on the eastern shore without your duel runner?" I shoot Bruno a look. "Either of you?"

"Ask Yusei, I don't remember," Bruno says nonchalantly.

"I… Christ, are you okay, Bruno?"

Yusei runs a hand through his hair and tosses his jacket onto the couch. "So Bruno and I went in to the Bureau today to fill out a report for Ushio."

"A report? About what?"

"Ghost stuff." He sounds solemn. "Crash—uh, Satisfaction Town was the first real field thing he's done since he got cleared by the doctor to go back to work, so he wanted to square away the stuff we knew. They sent a car for us, though, so we were there without my runner."

"Yeah, but… I picked you up in _Satellite_."

He breathes out through his nose. "You remember me telling you about Sherry LeBlanc?"

"You know I do not."

"French lady. Soda truck."

"OH! Right. Kidnapping. Impractically timed riding duel. That rings a bell."

"Well, she, uh. Broke into the Bureau today."

"She _broke in_?" I ask. "You can literally just walk in the front door, there's one guy out front."

"I mean." He sighs again. "The lower levels, the records room. She and her manservant—"

" _Manservant_?"

"Let me finish! The two of them busted down into the records basement, set off a dummy bomb that made them evacuate the building—"

"We got trapped in an elevator," Bruno adds. "But that's. Most of what I remember."

"I was getting to that." Yusei rubs between his eyes. "We got trapped in an elevator because the main power shut off while we were in it. I went down to the basement and tried to fight my way past Mr. Manservant to get to Sherry, who was trying to hack the records database to find out about some—some card she has. Bruno got to Sherry before I did—"

"And I remember none of what happened!"

"—and the card triggered this…" Yusei swallows. He sinks down onto the couch, hands folded together. "This image."

That got serious _real_ fast. "Like what kind of image?"

"I was… I was in this room. All white, and cold, like a big marble box. On the other side of the room, farther than I could reach there was this. Machine thing."

"Machine thing?" I say slowly.

"That's the best way I could describe it." He starts trying to illustrate in the air with his hands. "Almost like this big lenticular shell. Wires and tubes everywhere, just floating there, all… colorless. Colorless save for this human eye out the side of it."

"...you… didn't… breathe anything questionable in today. Did you?"

"No!" He throws his hands up. "When I woke up, we were on the eastern shore. With Bruno and Sherry and Mizogushi—"

"The manservant, I presume."

"And. And I didn't know what else to do besides ask for a ride home."

"Yeesh." I shake my head. "Do you think Sherry brought you there?"

"She was unconscious when we woke up," Bruno adds. "Just Mizogushi was awake. And I don't think he'd woken up long before us."

"That's… unusual."

"There has to be _some_ explanation for it," Yusei insists.

"The Dragon?" I suggest.

"No, I didn't feel anything. I would have, if it'd been involved." His hand rubs almost instinctively over his bare right arm—the dragon's head etched in red on his skin. "Plus, if it were… I'd be even more concerned."

"Like I said, I don't remember a thing." Bruno digs for coffee cups in the cupboard. "But I already have amnesia, so I don't think that part is too unusual."

"Fucking relatable," I mutter. "Do you know if… Do you have any reason to believe Sherry could be psychic?"

Yusei inclines his head. "Why?"

"Well. If the card triggered something, and the Dragon wasn't involved, that makes me think psychic. Physicalizer."

"I… I don't know. But that doesn't explain how we got to Satellite."

"Someone picked you up and dropped you. How long were you out?"

"A few hours," he admits.

"Plenty of time to make a getaway and fake incoherence." I shrug. "I think it's all explainable."

"I… I guess."

"I wouldn't think too hard about it," I say. "You have a lot on your plate as is. Crow's meeting with B&C tomorrow, tournament junk starts on Wednesday—"

"Oh, gods. Don't remind me."

"There's a lot to do, Yusei. You don't need more to obsess over, especially if there's a reasonable explanation for it. Okay?"

"Okay," he mutters.

"You can get more serious if more weird stuff happens. I promise. And you know you can yell about it to me if you need to."

"Me too!" Bruno adds. "Unfortunately, I probably won't remember it after a few days, but I'll still listen! And I'll give you the best advice I can!"

Yusei's crinkled expression softens a bit. "Thanks, you guys."

Bruno locates a mug, and I pass the kitchen table to get to him. As he pours coffee, I say, "You forget things, Bruno?"

"Ooh yeah. All the time." He shakes his head a little. "I'm really good with numbers and dates and details and things. Usually faces, too. But details like events and names don't always stick."

Something in my chest feels terribly warm at that. Like there's some sense of belonging in what he just said. "Me too."

"Really?"

"I don't remember any of those things, either, usually. And the further back I get in my memory, the foggier it gets."

"Yes, exactly! Up until a certain point, when it all just—"

"—stops," we say at the same time.

Bruno beams. "Well, I knew I wasn't the only amnesiac on the team. But it's nice to know we really are weathering it together."

My voice gets stuck in my throat; all I can do is smile back.

"Well! I'm gonna go get ready for bed," Bruno says. "Being unconscious takes a lot out of you."

Yusei scoffs.

Bruno ruffles my hair—a familiar, sort of brotherly thing that makes me all warm inside—and starts hoisting himself up the ladder into the loft.

"Look at you," Yusei says. "Making friends."

I tuck my hair behind my ears as I pass back over to him and the couch. "I've… never had anyone to relate to like that before."

That makes Yusei smile a little, down toward the floor. "He's definitely full of surprises."

I raise my mug to my lips; the pleasant warmth from that conversation certainly lifted my mood. "Uh oh, that's a smitten sort of look."

His head jerks up. "Excuse me?"

"Am I on the right track?" I say, noting the red starting to creep into his cheeks. "Do you _like_ him?"

He rolls his eyes, but it's more to hide his embarrassment, I think. "Not so loud."

"Oh my gooooooods."

"It's not—I mean, I don't… I'd entertain it if he asked, all right? That's all. It's not… Not like _that_. I don't _pine_."

"Mmmmmmmmmmhm."

"Oh, shut up. I _don't._ I like Bruno as my friend, but if he wanted to, I would. If he doesn't, I don't care. Now leave me be about it."

"I'm just teasing you," I laugh. "You'd be good together. You're a lot alike."

"So were Evan and I," he snorts.

"You and Evan have matching tempers. Bruno doesn't have an angry bone in his body. That's not an excuse that works." I take another drink. "I think you could go for it."

"It's exactly like I told you, Silvan. That's how I feel. Besides, I'm not going to risk ruining a friendship for something like that." He crosses his arms, pivoting away from me a little. "Not when I'm still working myself out."

"How do you mean?" I ask.

"I mean, I—like you said, I have a lot going on. Too much to think about anything else."

"Well, yeah, I suppose," I say. "In my opinion, I guess… it'd be nice to share the load with someone."

"Well I have you for that, don't I?"

"I doubt you'd tell me the same things you'd tell an s/o, Yusei."

"I tell you everything, that's not going to change." He pauses. "I don't see how it matters, I'm not looking for anything."

"Oh?"

"I'm just. Like I said. Sorting myself out."

"Okay. You're allowed to do that," I say. "I'm not trying to push you into anything, I'm just teasing. We can stop talking about it."

"Good. I'm bad at love and I don't want to get into it."

"It's okay, I am too." After a pause and another drink, I say, "I'm sorry if I upset you."

"...it's okay. It's kind of a sore subject."

"How do you mean?"

He breathes out really long. "I have this dilemma. About that sort of thing? You know I get easily attached."

"Hey, don't pretend that's a weakness."

"But it is. I get easily attached all the time and my brain tells me to want these things that I just—I can't have." He pauses, presumably looking for a way to explain further. "Like I just keep wanting things or—or people that, one way or another, aren't going to want me. I don't know. I really don't know anymore."

"You… you are good, Yusei," I say slowly. "You know that, right? You deserve to be loved just like anybody else does."

"All I ever do is attract bad news," he says. "I'm literally a danger magnet. Half the time I'm so anxious about solving my own problems that I almost don't solve them. How could I bring someone else into that? How could anybody possibly feel for me despite it?"

"Yusei, you make friends everywhere you go," I tell him. "Your optimism is contagious—you're so smart it blows my mind. And I've never met anyone as kind as you. You drop everything to help other people you don't even know all the time. The fact that you think those are bad things blows my mind."

"I just would rather not cause anyone trouble." He wrings his hands. "Especially someone I come to love."

Somewhere I have vague memories of Evan telling me about this—about how lonely Yusei can get. And this conversation is oddly relevant, considering the week I've had.

"Can I see that?" I say. He turns to me, looking bewildered, as I sit beside him and put a hand on his arm and my cup down on the table. "You can look at mine, if you want." I turn my inner arm toward him a little to expose my compass tattoo.

His skin is rougher around the mark, a bit more like a brand. I feel his fingers brush over mine, fast, like he didn't expect the skin to be smooth.

"Why the compass?" He asks.

"At the time, I just got what I thought was pretty," I answer. "Anything the artist recommended." I have splashes of memories of Inoue, shoving book after book of designs into my lap those first couple sessions I had with her. "But I kind of like the irony of needing direction, too."

"Hm," he says.

"If you think about it, they're kind of the same. Giving direction. Though yours is certainly more effective than mine."

"I guess so." He draws his hand away from me—almost like he doesn't think he has permission to touch me anymore. "What was the point of that?"

"Well I dunno. I mean, all of us—your friends—are here to give you direction. Kind of a happy coincidence that you're all connected by marks like that. But you know we're all here for you no matter what, right? Whether or not you believe it, you're much better than you give yourself credit for. I think the type of people the rest of us are is a testimony to that, at least."

"Even my friends always seem to leave eventually," he says. That sentence came out of his mouth so easily, so emotionlessly, that it scares me.

"Times change and people change, Yusei," I say. "But you'll always have us."

"I don't know if you can speak for the others."

Something in me knows that I can, but at this point I'm not sure I can beat this fatalistic streak he's having. I correct myself: "You'll always have me."

"You sure about that?"

"I know you didn't forget the promise we made," I say. "We've been through so much already. You haven't given up on me yet, so I'm not going to give up on you either. I'm with you to the grave. Right?"

He sighs out his nose and mutters, "To the grave." Then he eyes my coffee cup, on the table, and before I can nudge it toward him, he picks it up to throw back some of my coffee.

All those months ago, when trying to recover from the Dark Signers and Arcadia was a feedback loop of nightmares, meds, and working to forget, the two of us made a promise.

We both almost died a lot, just in those first few days we knew each other. Back then, we kept doing reckless things for each other, going to hell and back, just because we could. Jumping into death. Standing tall in front of some pretty evil things. Just because it seemed like nearly no one else was prepared to. I followed him to the grave, and he followed me. So we promised each other that we wouldn't change that.

We certainly got a lot closer in the last few months because of it. Yet, today, I think he's skirting around what's really bothering him. We've jumped from whatever the hell happened today to this—this absolute emotional cutoff I've only ever seen a couple other times from him. If he won't tell me, I won't pry—I've learned that it doesn't often work—but I still wish I knew if there was something I could do besides sit here with him in near silence.

In the morning, I roll over on something kinda squishy, and I think I knock the wind out of Yusei.

"Christ," I groan, crawling away so my head's no longer pressed to him. "When did you get there?"

"I can't remember," he says, voice rough from sleep. "Also I can't breathe."

"Sorry."

"Guys, we have a _couch_." I recognize Jack's voice as he comes over to us from the kitchenette. Somehow we ended up on the floor, almost underneath the coffee table, my head on his stomach. Daylight hits the side of my face through the bay windows near the door—I have absolutely no clue how we ended up on the floor. Or when, exactly, we fell asleep.

"Really?" Yusei says, rubbing at his eyes. He's put his feet up on the couch cushions. "I hadn't noticed."

"You're funny."

"Jack," I say, "can I have some coffee?"

"Coffee? What coffee?"

"Don't be a jerkoff, I can smell it!"

Suddenly he's there, looking at us over the top of the couch, his favorite mug in hand—a gift from Carly, plain white with a little crown hand-painted on its side. "You didn't even finish the cup I found on the table this morning."

"Pleeeeeeeease?"

He takes a swig from his cup. "All right, but only because I feel bad for your lip."

"What about me?" Yusei retorts.

"You've got two perfectly functioning legs and a well-oiled spine."

"And an intact lip, I suppose," he grumbles, shooting me a look as he rolls up off of the floor. "What time is it?"

"A bit until noon." I can hear rummaging as Yusei presumably goes searching through the cupboards for another spare cup.

" _Noon_?" Yusei exclaims. "I missed Crow's meeting with Bolger!"

"Well, ah… sort of? It's a whole fucking _thing_ now."

"What kind of whole fucking thing?" I ask.

"I ran into him outside not too long ago," Jack says. "He's riled up about a duel Bolger challenged him to."

Yusei sounds about ten thousand more times interested when he replies, "A duel?"

"Supposedly this fuckin' garbage man challenged him to a duel for all of Pearson's bullshit."

"You're _joking_."

"Please," I interrupt, "tell me what the hell is going on."

"You gotta get up first," Jack says, setting a mug for me on the coffee table. He sees me struggling to roll up off of my back and comes around the table to grab my hands, then hoists me onto my feet.

"Thank you," I say.

He ruffles my hair. He's in an oddly good mood this morning.

"Pearson was the guy who tried putting together the Blackbird the first time around," Yusei continues.

"Whoa, hold on. The 'first time'?"

"Well yeah. Crow's like us, mostly self taught in the way of duel runner mechanics, but he got a lot of tips and tricks from Pearson back in Satellite."

"He was a pretty handy dude," Jack adds. "He wrote up the plans for the Blackbird and finished this kinda faulty prototype before he died—Crow fixed it up later, made it better and sturdier and all that."

"I didn't know he had a mentor," I say.

"He gave Crow his Blackwing deck," Yusei chimes. "Kind of. Was a father figure to him for a while."

I lift my mug to my lips. "Jack, you said he died?"

"Yeah, in a big fire."

"Crow was really broken up about it," Yusei says. "But Pearson was friends with Bolger—the guy who runs B&C, and he knows Crow."

"Oh," I reply. "That's why you had him ask about fitting your engines."

"Yeah, we figured it was a shot, and it's a machining company, they have all the tech we don't… longshot, but worth the request." Yusei shakes his head. He's leaning against the counter, weighing the coffee pot in his hand. "Why would Bolger challenge him to a duel?"

"I don't know. Crow didn't say," Jack responds. "He was really uptight when I saw him."

"Maybe we should see if we could go watch," Yusei suggests. "I'm sure he'd like the support."

"I'd hate to ante up like that and not have an audience," Jack adds.

"You just hate not having an audience."

" _Hey_."

Yusei stretches, and I hear his shoulder crack. "Want to come, Silvan?"

"Sure, ah…" I rub my eyes. I have this fuzzy déja-vu-ish memory of writing myself some reminder early yesterday. "Wait, what day is it?"

"Saturday?"

"What _day_?"

"The, uh…" Jack squints at the calendar on the wall by the sink. "10th."

"Ah! Shit," I say. "That's what I'm forgetting. I'm supposed to be meeting Aki."

"For what?" Yusei asks.

"We're picking up everybody's uniforms today."

"Oh!" Jack says. "Our suits are done?"

"Yeah, they said the 10th. If that's today I gotta go meet Aki." I throw back the rest of my coffee. It's just cool enough for me to practically chug it. "Let me know how Crow does, though."

"Will do," Yusei replies. "Should be interesting."

"Oh, sounds like." I reach for my jacket on the back of the couch. "I'll send pics, I'll see you guys later!"

"Leaving so soon?" Jack retorts.

"Well, yeah! We're supposed to meet there, I'm definitely late if it's almost noon."

"Drive carefully." Yusei's already across the room, shoving the garage door up. I glance up at him, and just in looking at his face, a rush of memories from last night fills me up. The stuff he said. The look in his eyes. My stomach instantly feels uneasy, that I can't even remember if it resolved. I mutter a 'thanks' as I back my duel runner out into the alley, slip my helmet on, and head out uptown.

A month or so ago, Aki and I got together and I doodled out some riding suit designs for the team. I used photos of Jack's old duels for his, and sketched out a few different looks for Yusei and Crow that I thought might suit them. Everybody picked ones they liked most (in Jack's case, I made a whole new drawing while he dictated from over my shoulder), and Aki took them to some consignment place owned by a friend of her mom's—the same place Aki got her own riding suit made. Lucky for us, we got a discount on the price; we all pooled to pay anyways, but paying the full price for three riding suits and six uniforms for the rest of us would have been _significantly_ more expensive.

The place is little, part of a brick complex, and a few blocks away from Audrey's office. Bloody Kiss is already parked outside; I just hope that Aki hasn't been waiting here long.

The lobby inside is pretty and clean; the receptionist's desk is to the left of the door, and there's a little dais and with mirrors around it near the door to the seamstress' area. Aki is up front, talking to the receptionist.

"Oh hey!" Aki says. "You're here!"

"Sorry I'm late, I overslept," I say. "Are we good?"

"Yeah, there's someone in the back going to get everything." Aki looks me slowly up and down, which makes my face feel warm. "Are you… wearing the same thing you were wearing yesterday?"

"...oh, shit." I fell asleep at Yusei's, I was so focused on everything with him, so I totally forgot to go home and shower. Or change. Or anything. "Whoops."

"That's okay! We can go to your place instead of mine."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, it's no problem. We can still go to my house for lunch."

"Okay," I say, feeling like I fucked a whole thing up.

Somebody comes out of the back room carrying a box, and I reach out to take it before Aki can so that I can contribute at least a little. After tossing a 'thank you' back toward the receptionist and the other worker, Aki and I head out, I put the box in my spare helmet compartment, and together we head back to my apartment.

Once we're there, I make myself go straight to shower, suddenly self-conscious about how sweaty I must smell. I stand under the water for as long as I can stand being alone, watching soap dribble down off of my skin, watching water go over my compass tattoo and wondering if there was more I could have done. Wondering why this sick feeling won't leave me.

When I dry myself, I change my bandages on my knuckles and apply my salve to my split lip. Then I dress in a big cozy white sweater and grey pants and head downstairs, my towel on my head, to where Aki is unpacking the box on the coffee table.

"Are you doing okay?" she asks. Does my distress really show that easily? "You seem really out of it."

"I'm—I'm fine. I just have a lot on my mind."

"Wanna talk about it?"

I sink down onto the couch as Aki pulls a red and black jacket out of the box. "I'll think about it."

"Okay. Take your time." Aki holds the jacket up to herself. "What do you think? They came out good."

"Yeah. The colors look really nice and vibrant. Whose is that?"

Aki checks the size. "It's um… it might be mine?" She pulls it on and adjusts the collar. "Yeah, I think it's mine."

"Red does wonders for you, as we know."

Aki laughs. "Hey, you too. Let me find yours." She goes digging through the box, pulling out clothing items as she goes and setting them on the table. We've got six sets of red and black jackets and yellow shirts with a kind of chevron pattern going on: our team's uniform, after a lot of brainstorming and like eight people shouting at me to redraw something. "OH!" Aki squeals a little as she reaches into the bottom of the box and pulls out one of the guys' riding suits. Jack's, by the look of it: white and grey leather, purple inserts, studs galore.

Aki hops to her feet and holds the suit up to herself; it absolutely _dwarfs_ her. "They look so fantastic!"

"Yeah, jeez." I reach to touch the arm of the suit. "It's. Really weird seeing something I doodled in real life."

"Ahh, the leather's so nice and soft. Too bad it's gonna get all rough and crackly."

I take Jack's suit from her, running my hands over the shoulder pads, as Aki lifts Crow's out of the box. Crow's is in a few more pieces than Jack's, split into pants, jacket, and gloves. Aki weighs Crow's jacket in her hands. "They did such a good job!"

"Thank gods we got that discount," I say. I set Jack's suit down on the table. "This was so worth it."

"Oh!" Aki pulls Yusei's suit out of the box. It's in pieces like Crow's, but only in the suit, the jacket, and the gloves. Aki raises her eyebrows at me as she holds it up. "He's going to look _so_ nice in this."

Oh. Oh that's… okay. That might be why I feel so weird.

"Have… Have you talked recently?" I ask. "Like. At all?"

Her face flushes red. "Well… Well, no, but—"

"Listen, um." I sink back into the couch. "I was late this morning because I stayed over across the plaza last night, and I um. Yusei and I had a really heavy chat last night."

"How do you mean?"

"Aki, I think you should give up on Yusei."

She opens and closes her mouth a couple of times. After a long second of silence, she says, "I'm sorry?"

"We were…" I rub my hands on my pants to warm my legs. "I picked him up from Satellite last night, long story, and Bruno invited me in for coffee so I kind of just lingered. I was joking with Yusei afterward when the conversation just kind of. Became really solemn."

Aki lays Yusei's suit on the table and sits down next to me. "What do you mean?"

"He's got something on his mind," I say. "I don't know what it is. He won't tell me what it is, and I've learned not to pry if he doesn't want to talk about it, but… whatever it is, he's really beating himself up about it."

"Get on with it. Please."

"Somehow," we ramble, "we were—we were talking about relationships and he got kind of. Like, depressed. He said he's trying to figure himself out, that he's not looking for anything… he was pretty much saying that he doesn't think anybody could think of him that way."

"Well, I—I could!"

"Aki, you're missing the point," I say. "He's not looking for someone to fix him. He doesn't need anybody to go fixing him but himself. Throwing a relationship into it is only going to take a toll on the two of you."

"Are you really dictating what I decide to—"

"Can I be worried about my friend without you accusing me of controlling you? Jesus Christ!" I have to take a breath and steel myself when I see her expression. "Dude. I know you want to be in love. I know, okay? I don't get your coping mechanisms just like you don't get mine, but you need to consider that you guys just might not be good for each other."

"How do you _know_ that."

"Besides the fact that you have nothing in common?" I retort. "That he has such a one-track-mind that it's impossible for him to pay attention to you unless you're involving yourself in something he can relate to?"

" _Hey_."

"When's the last time you talked, Aki? When's the last time you had an actual conversation? When you were getting your license? Because that's what I remember. Look at yourself and what you're doing."

"Where the hell is this even coming from?"

"I—I told you!" I stammer. "Yusei is my friend. I'm worried about him. And now that I know this about him I'm trying to warn you. I don't want you to set yourself up for someone that you can't have, especially since I know how far you can fall."

"You don't—"

"Before you finish that sentence, _yes_ I do. I know exactly what it's like to be emotionally unavailable. And I know what you're like when you're hurt. Please, let me try to help. I want to figure out what's going on with Yusei, but I also don't want you to get your heart broken. Maybe at some point, it could work with you two, but anytime soon would just be toxic."

" _Toxic_?"

"Yes!" I throw my hands up. "Not to psychoanalyze you or anything, but I _know_ how constantly pissed off and emotional you are. I _know_ you want to be in love. I know you feel that way because you're used to feeling loved by Divine and because you're still trying to live without his attention and his constant encouragement of your negative shit."

Her lips become a thin line.

"I know because I'm the _opposite_ , I was so scared of upsetting Divine that I taught myself to shut down. Why do you think I fuck around all the time? I wanna be loved as badly as you do, but I can't _do_ the—the _feelings_ part. I don't know how anymore. And I'm not gonna try to do anything but fuck around until I've come to terms with it all, if I ever do. I can't have an s/o fix that for me, that's not fair to them. I have to fix that for me. Just like Yusei and all of his problems can't make you feel as loved as you want to feel."

There's a long moment of silence. I can hear the radiator running up in the loft.

"Toxic," she repeats hollowly.

"I'm not saying any of this to be mean," I say. "I'm just worried. About him and whatever's going on. And how—how you could both get hurt."

"I've—never… thought that before." When she says it, it's with a lot of difficulty.

"I think… so far, he's been how you cope. Yusei."

Aki stands up. "No more. I don't want to talk about this anymore."

"...okay."

"I need some time to think." She starts off toward the garage to let herself out. "There's—one more in the box for you. A gift from my folks."

I sit there, inert, as she slips her helmet on and speeds back out the alley. Mostly out of curiosity, I lean in to peek over the lip of the box at the last thing inside: another riding suit.

I'd doodled it just for the fun of it. Aki and I had been joking that I should commission a riding suit, just since I'm the only one who doesn't have one now. For the hell of it, I'd scrawled it on a page, never intending to actually give it to the consignment place. But I guess Aki must have.

I weigh the suit in my hands; lavender leather, accented with magenta around the waist. Thick, supple violet leather jacket, shoulder pads, long gloves, the works.

I won't feel bad about telling her what I did. I refuse to. I won't be complicit in two of my friends' lives, not like this. I won't make things worse for Yusei by letting Aki latch on to him, and I won't watch Aki latch onto—onto somebody like me to try to make herself feel better. And then get hurt because of it.

And I _also_ refuse to sit here feeling sorry about everything. I'm gonna be _so fucking productive_. I throw my towel onto the couch, stand up, and head toward the kitchenette to make myself some food—since my lunch invite, at this point, is almost certainly null and void.


	45. Wires

Early Wednesday morning, I stand in the kitchen in a jean skirt, tall socks, and my yellow shirt with the chevron logo. I think I've been through almost the whole pot of coffee by myself. I go for the freezer for the coffee grounds; it's probably a good idea if I start brewing another pot now.

I can hear just barely-there creaking—somebody trying to sneak downstairs without alerting anyone else.

"Want some coffee, Kiryu?" I say over my shoulder.

There's a pretty loud creak as he stops in his tracks. Then, a second of silence. And a sigh. "How'd you know it was me?"

"Evan knows where the floors creak."

He breathes out. "Yeah, okay. Makes sense. Coffee would be great, actually."

"Cool. I'm brewing a new pot right now." I see him coming down the stairs (wearing one of my brother's more recognizable tee shirts) as I cross back from the freezer to the coffee maker. "Can you reach the cups on the top shelf?"

"Sure." Kiryu's got just enough height on me to reach the mugs on the middle shelf—back where I can't reach. I fill a paper filter with more ground coffee. "How long have you been up?"

"Oh, right. I don't really… sleep."

His expression blanks.

"I mean, I nap. A lot. But I don't do like. Full sleep cycles."

"It's… it's been eight months," he says softly.

"You're telling me you don't still have nightmares?"

He doesn't say anything.

"Sorry," I murmur.

"...it's okay." He stands next to me at the counter. I breathe in the smell of the grounds before I shut the bag. "You don't take meds?"

"I have them, I just… they make everything worse. Turn the nightmares into night terrors. I stopped taking them a while ago."

"Oh."

"What about you?" I slide the filter into the top of the coffee pot, click the button, and turn to put the bag of grounds back into the freezer. "Tell me your coping secrets, o fellow survivor."

"If we're being honest?" His voice sounds low, solemn, when he says it. "I… have a lot of scars."

He says it like he isn't sure if I'll know what he means—but I do. Immediately I go rummaging through the drawer under the sink until I find the package of red permanent markers that's been sitting underneath the pot holders since we got the apartment. When I hand Kiryu one of them, fresh from the plastic, he just stares at it blankly.

"Draw lines with that when you get the urge," I say. "The tips are pretty pointy, if it's a sensation thing."

After a long, practically excruciating second of silence, the sudden whirring of the coffee machine visibly startles him and he says, "How long have you had these?"

"Eight months." It's a lot to force myself not to think about. "Is my brother awake?"

"Brushing his teeth and jazz. He told me I could go downstairs and look for something to eat."

"We have plenty. Coffee should be done in a couple minutes. Can you cook?"

"Well, I… It's been a while."

"That's all right. We have dinner leftovers, bagels, cereal, instant oatmeal…"

"What does he usually have?" Kiryu asks.

"Cereal, mostly," I say. "He'll have a bagel if one of us buys lox."

"...I could do oatmeal, I think."

"Sure." I stand on my toes to open the cabinet. "Box is on the top shelf. Dark blue, you see it?"

Kiryu reaches up for it, and I get him a bowl while he studies the directions on the side of the box. Since I reminded myself anyways, I stick a bagel in the toaster oven for myself.

Kiryu, mid gingerly watching water from the tap pool around his oatmeal, says, "Is this weird? This feels weird."

"What?" I ask.

"Domesticity."

"It's weird at first, but you learn to like it."

"I just… I feel like I'm intruding."

"You're not," I say. "Don't worry. You're welcome here."

"...thank you."

I hear my brother coming down the stairs; he knows that he's in no danger of waking me. "Silvan, you're wearing the brown boots, right?"

"Yeah, I was going to go up and get them myself—"

"Too late." He puts my shoes down by the coffee table. "One less trip to take, especially because I think we're running late."

"No we're not, we still have fifteen minutes."

He bends to tie his other red and white sneaker. "I still have to make food."

"You have to pour milk and cereal into a bowl, wheeeeee."

" _Hey now_." He crosses to Kiryu, who's punching a cook time into the microwave. "I see you found the breakfast spread okay."

"Silvan's got her helpful moments," Kiryu retorts.

"Aw, now I regret being nice," I say.

Evan laughs a little, sees the red marker clenched in Kiryu's fingers, and lifts his open hand to kiss the palm. "You found those too."

"We're getting open with our traumas in this house," I tell him. "Only good vibes allowed."

Kiryu's face goes visibly pink.

"You coming with us today?" I ask, trying to keep the conversation going. Not like I didn't know Kiryu was here—Evan got back yesterday when I was napping and I woke up to his duel runner next to mine—but I still want to make him feel as welcome and included as I can.

"No, afraid not. I'm not technically on the team, so I can't be there for practice time."

"Bummer."

"He's coming to our tourneys, though," Evan adds. "I didn't think my comps would come in handy, but hey! Here we are."

"Hope they're good seats," I remark. "It'd be a travesty if you stuck your boyfriend up in the nosebleeds." I hear my bagel pop out of the toaster, so I reach to get a plate out of the cupboard before I can go retrieve it. Evan rummages for a bowl and his favorite cereal in the leftmost cupboard.

"At that point, staying here and watching on the TV would be better," Kiryu says, winking at me. I try my best to keep my laughter to myself as I spread butter on my bagel halves.

This morning is—new. Different. But oddly wonderful. This is what I wanted, after all. This is why I spent eight months searching for Kiryu in the first place. There's a happiness I feel in the air that I've wanted for Evan for every long night shift he takes, every eight hour day he takes running back and forth and working to forget everything.

At least, now, there's an end in sight. Now things can be repaired, and time is on his side.

When we're done with breakfast, Evan chugs down a cup of coffee, and I pull on my brown boots and my jacket. It's padded nicely on the inside—good for keeping me warm. Evan washes his bowl and his cup out in the sink, and together we start toward the back door to get our duel runners outside.

Evan rolls Electric Vertigo along behind me, stopping to give Kiryu a fleeting kiss goodbye. I incline my head away, just to try to give them a moment of privacy. Then Kiryu reaches to shut the garage door, and Evan and I start rolling our duel runners around front to the other end of the square.

"Will he be okay by himself?" I ask.

"He'll be okay. We'll be back by lunchtime, anyways. And I told him to call me if he needs me."

"That's good. I'm glad."

He bumps me with his shoulder. "Thank you."

"Oh, don't give me that, I didn't—"

"Hush up. Let me be grateful."

We park our runners outside, and I give a light knock on the door. When I nudge on it to find that it's open, I see Jack, Crow, and Yusei down by their duel runners. Ruka and Rua are on the couch in their own uniforms, and they look up at us when we enter the room.

"Good moooooooorning everyone," I call. "Team-5-Dicks."

"Where did the other two come from?" Evan says.

"That's us."

"Excuse me?" Jack retorts.

"What, did you come up with it?" I say.

He points. "Crow suggested it."

"Hey, you agreed to it!" Crow remarks.

Yusei throws me a ' _look at what you've done_ ' kind of look. I send an apologetic smile his way and come down from the doorstep to where their duel runners are lined up.

"Wait, what is it supposed to mean?" Rua asks.

"It's supposed to refer to the five Signer Dragons," Jack scoffs. He turns toward me when he says, "It was better than anything else."

"All right, it was a joke, don't crucify me for it. It's too early for that."

"It's too early for jooooookes."

"Hey, look at you three!" Evan interjects in that voice he uses when he's trying to derail an argument. "Looking all professional in your new outfits."

Jack, immediately focused on the subject of his outfit, turns in a circle as if to model his suit for us. "We're the best looking team alive."

"Good thing Silvan can draw," Evan says. "Otherwise we would've submitted stick figures to that consignment place."

"I know," Yusei retorts. "I've seen your schematics."

"Hey!"

"I like how everybody matches!" Bruno says in between shoveling down scrambled eggs. "We look like a team!"

"Yeah, that was kinda the point," Crow responds.

"No, I mean—it's like it's all official now. Which is pretty cool."

Yusei adjusts his jacket a little. "Hopefully we're more than just for show."

Crow and Jack, at the same time, smack Yusei in the shoulder—from both sides—which makes him jump.

"Thank you for that," I say.

Crow gives me a thumbs up and says, "No pessimism. Our runners are upgraded, our decks are all reorganized, we practically do this every day. We'll be fine."

"We'll be sweeping the floor with the competition is what we'll be doing," Jack retorts.

A knock on the door. Aki pokes her head. "Hi!"

I don't look at her for too long, and she doesn't even look at me. We haven't talked since we picked up the team uniforms.

"Great, everyone's here," Jack says, clapping his hands together. "Time to go. All of the important stuff starts by nine."

"When do we get to practice?" Crow asks.

"We'll find out when we get there," Yusei tells him. "But they said the practice times are all before noon."

"Who's 'they'?"

"The—organizers, I don't know, I got paperwork in the mail."

"Oh, right, the thing you alone check."

Everyone begins situating themselves, pulling their duel runners outside through the garage door one by one. Aki's already outside, so she and the twins (with their duel boards) head up through the front door to wait for the rest of us. Crow and Jack pull their runners out first, followed by Bruno with his barely big enough self-built model. After Yusei's duel runner clears the garage door, Evan reaches to pull it shut, click the padlock, and follow me around front to where our duel runners are parked.

They've extended the Memorial Circuit for the WRGP: a project that took almost as long as Daedalus' completion. They busted open two sides of the stadium and connected them to the street routes running all over the city, creating more routes for more duels to take place at the same time. Presumably, though, the higher profile duels will take place mostly in the Circuit route. I have to wonder, with all of the more 'prestigious' competitors that have showed up for this, if our team will land in any of the Main Circuit duels.

Out near the competitor's entrance, I get this powerful jab of deja vu. If I turn around, I bet I could spot Arcadia, and the thought makes me start to feel nauseous.

"What's that?" Rua asks, bringing me halfway back to the real world. I continue to drag Hiraeth along behind the others, toward a big electronic leaderboard posted in front of the duel runner entrance.

"It's the board for the Preliminary Round," Ruka tells him. "Is it like a league, though?"

"Yeah," Aki explains. "It runs on a bracketed block schedule."

"There are 32 teams," I say immediately, "and they're blocked into eight different leagues, four per section on a bracket system."

"The winners from each block go on to the actual competition," Aki continues. She doesn't even glance at me. "Losers in the first block compete against each other for second place, and when all the blocks have been decided, there's a wild card shuffle that picks one more team out of the second placers and tosses them into the competition."

"So, who are we bracketed with first?"

"Team Unicorn," Crow reads, a scowl in his voice. He pauses, and then he and Jack exchange a look. Then both of them look straight at me.

"...what?"

They both look like they're trying to decide what to say.

It's Yusei who heaves a big sigh and says, "Yep, this'll be fun."

"What?" I look to Evan. "What?"

He shrugs at me, but I can't decide if he really has no clue or if he's teasing me.

"Hey, look," Bruno remarks, pointing over Jack's shoulder. "Our practice time should be next to our team name."

"Okay, uhh... What time is it?" Crow asks, reaching to grab Evan's arm.

"Time for you to get your own fucking watch, thanks," Evan retorts. "We're scheduled good and early. We have enough time to get into the pits and you guys can get ready to practice."

"Practice!" Rua repeats.

"Come on," Aki tells him, "we can go watch from the stands." She ushers the twins off and Bruno, Evan, and I park our duel runners out front with Aki's.

The guys roll their duel runners into the entrance to the track, and we follow them on so that we can find the pit station we've been assigned to. I find it first, after taking off ahead down an aisleway of doors until I find one marked with the team's logo on a placard.

It's a simple little garage area with a sheet metal door that I push up; behind it is a long strip of concrete sectioned off by a gate at the front; a whole mess of expensive looking computers are set up along the frontmost area of the pit, just behind the exchange lane.

"Ooh," I mutter. I cross to the setup and switch a section of it on; the KaibaCorp logo flashes on the screen as it boots.

"Silvan?" Yusei pokes his head in the door behind me.

"This is very cool," I say. "I haven't seen setups half this size, let alone touched them."

"Agreed," Yusei remarks, folding his arms as he stops to admire the mess of computers.

I fiddle with the different settings screens, buttons, and applications. "I can scan your duel runners while they're on the track! This is so cool!"

He laughs a little. "You're like a kid in a candy store."

"Don't tell me you're not!"

I hear Bruno before I see him. "Jeez, I finally found you!" When I turn to look back at the door, he's looking at a banner with our logo on it strung up over the benches by the door. My brother jogs in behind him.

"You guys have to look at this stuff," I say. "Seriously."

Evan and Bruno gravitate toward me and the computers, and Yusei backs off a little. "I'm going to go rejoin Crow and Jack, I just wanted to see where this was."

"Have fun!" I say as he heads back out the door.

He sort of just scoffs. "You too."

Evan leans on the desk next to me and watches me click through applications. "Damn. This is really real."

"I know. We're really here!"

"Feels like just yesterday Yusei was changing code languages."

"Oh, gods, quit it."

Bruno, to my right, laughs.

"Nice that we got one of the earlier slots," Evan says.

"I mean, we could have been late, you realize."

"Yeah, but like. I don't have to leave Kiryu home alone for hours on end."

"Okay, that's fair."

"Oh, you brought him back with you?" Bruno asks.

"Well—yeah." Evan turns bright red. "A few days wasn't really enough to patch things up."

"You seem like you two are doing okay," I remark.

"Oh, good," he scoffs. "The first couple of days were… rough."

"Well, he can stay with us as long as he wants, so don't feel obligated to fix everything quickly. These things take time."

Evan kind of shakes his head sheepishly, like he doesn't know what to say to that. "...he's going to want to go back to Satisfaction Town eventually, I know that. Nico and West have really grown on him, and he wants to help their dad look for a job…"

"Don't think too far ahead of yourself," I say. "Just let it happen as it happens. Lemme know if you need anything from me."

"You've already done plenty for us, Silvan."

"Yeah, but it's not like there's a cap on me being nice. You're my brother, I want to do nice things for you. You don't owe me anything for it."

He groans under his breath a little, like he's going to argue. After a second, he slings an arm around my shoulders and just kind of hugs me like that for a little while.

When I've seen every feature on the main computer, I sit and watch duel runners fly past us on the track for a while. I haven't been keeping track of time, but a while later a voice on a PA announces the end of the last team's practice time and the beginning of Team 5D's'. A fifteen minute countdown in appears in the corner of my computer screen. Bruno finds a way to track all three of the guys with cameras set up around the track.

Everything seems to be going totally fine until the very end of the session, when the voice on the PA comes back to announce the end of the practice session. Crow comes speeding past where we are. Jack and Yusei skid to a stop next to the gate.

"Uh oh, that can't be good," Evan says, rising to his feet.

I jump up too. "No, probably not."

Jack and Yusei are shouting for Crow to come back; I jog to the gate to see how far ahead he's gotten when I hear this gross, bone-chilling metal-scraping-on-metal noise.

I vault over the gate and Jack and Yusei go running; it looks like Crow hit someone else's duel runner. They must've been just entering the track for their session.

Crow and his duel runner are sprawled on the ground, opposite a guy with sandy blond hair. There's a dark haired guy in an outfit identical to the blond guy running over towards where we are.

My first instinct is to pull the Blackbird up off of the ground and lean it on its kickstand so I can take a walk around it. It's dented a little in one side—presumably where the runners collided. I look to the guy on the ground for some kind of visual permission that I can touch his duel runner, and when I think I get it, I heave it up onto its own kickstand.

"Crow!" Jack exclaims. "Why the hell didn't you stop?!"

Yusei hoists Crow up off of the track. The guy with dark hair helps up the blond guy Crow barreled into. "What's your problem? Are you trying to start something?"

"Jean, Jean, don't worry about it," the blond guy urges. "I'm sure he didn't mean to—"

"You could've hurt somebody! Hell, his runner could be out of commission!"

"Hey," I snap. I've taken my walk around the other competitor's runner already. "It's okay. The Blackbird took on more damage anyways. I just glanced over it, but I can't see so much as a scratch on yours."

The dark-haired guy turns up his nose at me. "You're lucky the damage wasn't worse."

"I'd be happy to fix it for you, should you find anything wrong."

"We have our own crew for that, _thanks_."

Yusei steps up for me. "No one was hurt. That's all that matters. Crow shouldn't have kept going the way he did. We're sorry about this."

A voice I recognize says, "Let it go, Jean. It was an accident."

Yusei throws me a panicked look.

" _Oh_. Hello there."

Ohhhhhhhh shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit.

"What are the odds?" He says.

"Andore," I exhale as I turn toward him, trying to maintain composure. "What are the odds, indeed."

"Hello, Silvan." That _goddamned_ smile. "I'm sorry we have to meet again this way, especially after you left so suddenly."

I'm trying not to be embarrassed that we're having this conversation with an audience. "Oh, that's all right. I guess there's no hope in keeping work out of it anymore."

"No, I guess not." His grin becomes a little rueful. "These are my teammates, Breo and Jean."

"Hello." Breo, the blonde, offers his hand.

Jean, the dark-haired one, snipes, "Hi."

"Jean," Andore scolds. "They did apologize."

"Don't ' _Jean_ ' me!"

Andore rolls his eyes.

Yusei shoulders in front of me a bit. "Is there anything I could do to make up for it?"

Andore thinks for a moment, glancing between me and Jean, and says, "Well... If it isn't any inconvenience to you, perhaps you could help us test out the track?"

"I'm not sure I know what you mean."

"An exhibition duel, maybe? It is our allotted time... Maybe so we can see how we work in this particular space." He shoots Jean a look. "Is that a better fix? Would that satisfy you?"

Jean, still scowling, gives a slight shrug.

"...all right," Yusei agrees, sounding reluctant.

Crow grabs his duel runner from Jack and starts to wheel it back towards the pits; I finally notice the logo on the banner in the pit section next to ours. Team Unicorn is encamped right next to us.

Breo wheels his duel runner into their section of the pits; I follow Crow back in through the gate.

"Your boyfriend's back, Silvan," Evan says thinly. "Look, he's over there. Being all pretty."

"I will armbar you. You know I can."

"I knew that would come back to bite us eventually," Yusei mutters.

"Will you shut up?" I snap, whipping around toward him. "I wouldn't have to see him again if Crow hadn't gunned it."

"Hey," Crow whines.

"Don't complain, you know you shouldn't have done it." Jack crosses his arms and steps a little closer into our circle. "Forgetting Silvan's leftovers for two seconds. Anyone else getting a shifty vibe off of that request?"

"What do you mean?" Yusei asks.

"The leaderboard outside—we're dueling them in a few days." Jack throws his hands up. "Are you telling me I'm the only one that read it? Why'd that douchenozzle ask for an exhibition duel if not to get a sneak peek at what he's up against?"

"Well, damn." Yusei runs a hand through his hair. "I guess I'll get a good look at his deck, too, then. Even if it is a ploy to get a look at us."

"Be careful," Jack says. "Don't show him all your tricks."

"Yeah, yeah," Yusei mumbles. He throws me a withering look, then goes off toward the gate.

"Looks like your boy wants to talk," Evan chimes.

"That's it, Kiryu's gonna have to watch me kill you later," I retort.

Sure enough, Andore looks to be waiting to talk to me. He's leaning casually against the partition between our pit sections, eyes on me. I take a breath, steel myself, and march over his way.

"Hello, you." His mouth turns up at the corners. "Shame you didn't even think to leave your cell on the mini fridge."

"I'm a very particular type of girl, Andore. You must know that by now," I say.

I'm not afraid to say what I want, I've just—never had to clarify before.

"But maybe it's fate we crossed paths again." He braces himself on the partition with one hand as he leans a bit further over it. "Maybe I want to take you out. Treat you to a meal."

"That's sweet of you to offer, but I'm not interested."

"Surely you can't expect me to believe a girl like you only ever feels up to sleeping around."

"Andore."

"Your poor lip." He reaches for me, and I jerk backward. "Can I assume the other guy had it worse?"

" _Andore_."

"Please, just entertain me. One evening. I'd be breaking my own rules if I slept with you without taking you out at least once."

"And I'd be breaking mine if I let you think I was looking for anything more than a fun evening."

He frowns.

"The answer is no. I had fun, but it's over now." I cross my arms. "Don't you have competition to profile?"

Andore sighs through his nose. "I suppose I'm that transparent, then?"

"Only if you admit to it." I keep his gaze for a couple more seconds before I go back around to our section of the pits. Crow is affectionately rubbing at the dent in one side of his duel runner.

"Lemme help you," I sigh.

"I'm sorry I fucked up," he says.

I exhale. "It's okay. You're excited."

"...sorry your fling is here."

"It's whatever. I just finished trying to tell him I'm not here to date."

Crow raises his eyebrows. "Damn, you were good enough to make him want to take you out? You should write a book."

I smack him in the side. He just kind of laughs at me. "Where'd Jack go?"

"He took his runner back outside and went into the stands, I think," Crow says.

"All right, then. Are you going to stay?"

"Probably." He looks fondly at the Blackbird. "I'll probably see what I can try to do to fix this thing."

"It's not a huge dent. I can probably just hammer it out right here."

"Duel's starting," Bruno calls. Crow sighs through his nose, then gets up to watch; I stay down to start pounding out the dent in his duel runner. Bruno turns the sound up on the computer so that I can hear it from where I am.

"I summon Max Warrior in Attack Position; then I'll end my turn!"

So Yusei got the first turn—and he appears to be playing it safe. Max Warrior's a LV 4 with 1800 ATK, which is good as possible Synchro material and as a first line of defense. I wait for Andore's voice to signal the start of the next turn.

"I summon Playful Possum in Attack Position! Next, its special effect activates! Since you control a monster with higher ATK than Playful Possum, it destroys itself!"

"Weird," Crow remarks. "What's he doing?"

"Playful Possum is a Beast-type monster," I muse. "Beast-type decks use card effect after card effect to replace weaker monsters with stronger ones."

"Since a Beast-type monster on my field was destroyed, I can pay 1000 Life Points to summon Green Baboon, Defender of the Forest!"

"What's its ATK?" I ask.

"2600."

"Great."

"Green Baboon, attack Max Warrior!"

With 2600 against Max Warrior's 1800, the damage calculation would leave Yusei with 3200 LP and an empty field.

"I'll set two cards face down and end my turn."

It's Yusei's turn. I make a mental note of the Speed Counters. "I activate the Speed Spell - Angel Baton! By sending a card to the Graveyard, I can draw two more!"

That's one of Yusei's favorite Speed Spells. It's useful and it doesn't require a payment of Speed Counters, it just requires you to have a certain amount of Counters.

"Next, I'm going to activate a second Angel Baton!"

Two in one draw? What's he looking for?

"I summon Junk Synchron from my hand! Then, due to its special effect, I can summon Speed Warrior from my Graveyard!"

He's not looking to summon Junk Warrior; he can't be. It has the same ATK as Green Baboon, and I doubt he wants them to clash and risk setting off one of Andore's face downs.

"Since I have a tuner monster on my field, I can also summon Quillbolt Hedgehog from my Graveyard! Next, I'll tune Junk Synchron with Speed Warrior and Quillbolt Hedgehog in order to Synchro Summon Junk Archer!"

Junk Archer has 2300 ATK, but it has a better effect. At this point, he's eliminating all of the doubts by making some very particular moves.

"By removing Quillbolt Hedgehog in my Graveyard from play, I can activate Junk Archer's special effect and remove your Green Baboon from play!"

Crow punches the air. "Yes!"

"Junk Archer, attack Andore directly!"

"I activate Battle Instinct! This will allow me to summon Nimble Momonga from my hand in Attack Position!"

"Oh," I groan. "Great."

"Nimble Momonga?" Crow asks.

"It's a Beast-type with 1000 ATK and 100 DEF—when it's destroyed in battle, its controller gains 1000 LP and then you can summon any number more of them if you've got them in your deck."

"Crap. And they're on a restart."

"Junk Archer," Yusei commands, "send Nimble Momonga to the Graveyard!"

"Damn," I sigh. There's still a damage calculation, which will take Andore down to 1700 LP. Nimble Momonga will bump him back up to 2700.

"I activate Nimble Momonga's special effect! Upon its destruction, I regain 1000 Life Points! I can also Special Summon two of them from my deck in Defense Position!"

"I set a card face down and end my turn." Since Yusei's turn is over, that also reactivates Junk Archer's special effect and brings Green Baboon back. It could easily take out Junk Archer and leave Yusei wide open.

"Praying that's a useful facedown," I comment. "Like, Scrap-Iron Scarecrow or something."

"I activate Playful Possum's secondary effect from the Graveyard in order to return it to the field! Then, by tributing it and one of my Nimble Momongas, I can summon up Behemoth the King of All Animals!"

"That doesn't sound pleasant," I say.

"It's a LV 7 with 2700 ATK," Bruno tells me.

"So, don't worry, we're good, this was a great idea," Evan, next to him, retorts.

"Since Behemoth was a Tribute Summon, I can now return both Nimble Momongas in my Graveyard to my hand! I'll switch the Momonga on my field to Attack Position and send Green Baboon to destroy your Junk Archer!"

"I activate my facedown, Chain Arrow! This allows me to temporarily raise Junk Archer's ATK by 500 points!"

"Okay, cool," I breathe out. That sets Junk Archer at 2800 versus Green Baboon's 2600. That'll destroy it and move Andore down to 2500 LP.

"There's more! By triggering the secondary effect of Chain Arrow, I can reduce Behemoth's ATK by 1000 until the end of this turn!"

"I activate Beast Burial Ritual! By destroying Nimble Momonga, I can draw two cards with the exception that those two cards cannot be used this turn! Next, I activate the special effect of Green Baboon, Defender of the Forest, in my Graveyard! I can bring it back onto my field!"

"Ah, crap," I grumble.

"Green Baboon, destroy Junk Archer!"

I finish more-or-less smoothing out the dent in Crow's duel runner (having pounded it into a slightly lumpy shape with a little hammer) and stand to watch the duel on screen, finally. I'd need something like a blowtorch to completely fix Crow's runner, which, regrettably, I don't have on hand.

On the computer's screen, I see all of the details of the duel as well as camera shots of where Andore and Yusei are on the track; Andore's just set a face down and ended his turn after taking out Junk Archer and attacking Yusei directly. Yusei is down to 1200 LP, and his field is completely clear: but it's his turn now.

"I summon Shield Wing in Defense Position—then I place two cards face down and end my turn!"

"Kind of a… scarily simple play," Bruno remarks.

"Either he's backed into a corner and this is all he can put up, or he's setting a trap for Andore," Evan says.

"Let's hope it's that second one," Crow groans.

I watch Andore draw and set a card onto his duel disk. "I summon Nimble Momonga! Then, I can take a Nimble Momonga in my hand and send it to the Graveyard to summon Egotistical Ape! By activating Egotistical Ape's special effect, I can increase its level by Nimble Momonga's!"

"That makes it a LV 7," Bruno says. "A Synchro Summon, maybe?"

"Maybe," I answer. "I'm thinking, though, that he wants to take Yusei out this turn. Shield Wing can only stand two attacks, the third would destroy it. A fourth would lose him the duel."

Yusei flips a face down "I activate Shield Coat! This allows me to double the DEF of Shield Wing until my next turn!"

"Why'd he do that?" Bruno asks.

"He's making sure that Nimble Momonga can't attack and destroy it. It takes out the possibility of the fourth attack."

"Very well, then! I tune Nimble Momonga and Egotistical Ape to Synchro Summon Naturia Gaodrake!"

Like I thought, Andore sends all three of his monsters to attack Shield Wing, but only Gaodrake is able to destroy it with no damage calculation. Andore, however, flips another face down.

"I play Howl of the Wild! For every Beast-type monster I control, I can deal 300 points in damage to you!"

That brings Yusei down to 300 LP at the start of his turn. Andore's such a calculating duelist, I'm thinking that this is the last turn for Yusei to do anything allowing him to win.

"I summon Debris Dragon! Then, I activate its effect, which will allow me to bring Shield Wing back from the Graveyard!"

"Is he going to summon Stardust?" Bruno says, sounding excited.

"It's likely," Evan scoffs.

"I activate the Speed Spell - Vision Wind! This allows me to summon a monster to the field from my Graveyard as long as I pay 2 of my Speed Counters!"

On screen, Yusei clicks down to 5 SPC, and Speed Warrior shows up on the field.

"Now I tune Speed Warrior with Debris Dragon and Shield Wing in order to Synchro Summon Stardust Dragon!"

"Okay, cool, he's going to win, right?" Bruno pipes up.

"Well, I'd like to think so," I say. "He's doing the best he can."

"If this is indicative of the first duel, I'm a little uneasy," Evan remarks.

"You didn't think it was going to be easy," I say, "did you?"

"I activate the Trap, Synchro Strike! I can increase my monster's ATK by 300 by however many monsters were used to summon it! Stardust Dragon, attack Green Baboon!"

After damage calculation, Andore's down to 100 LP.

"He just won," I say. "Great. Fantastic."

"Wait, but Andore still has 100 Life Points and two monsters on the field."

"I activate the effect of Speed World 2! If I have four or more Speed Counters, I can reveal a Speed Spell in my hand and deal you—"

A siren interrupts him: the same noise that cued the end of Team 5D's' practice time. Their monsters vanish from the field. Crow makes this swinging motion with his hand that I can only really try to describe as an "aw shucks" type of movement. "That was almost great."

Yusei and Andore make it back to where we are, and they meet in the middle to shake hands. I watch Yusei's stern, stony expression. The rigidness of his shoulders.

"Thank you for that," Andore tells him. "I haven't had a friendly duel like that in a while." Andore pivots a little; waves at me. After Yusei returns a thanks and a goodbye, Team Unicorn is as gone just as quickly as they appeared. Yusei looks in our direction.

"That was nice," Bruno offers.

"Oh, Yusei thinks so too," Evan retorts, making a big show out of rolling his eyes.

Yusei, his helmet clenched in one hand, approaches us and says, "I hated that."

"We could tell," Crow replies.

"I'm done with today," Yusei says. "Let's go home."

"Gladly." Evan stands and starts powering down the computer.

"I'll go get everybody else," Bruno volunteers.

"Silvan, is my duel runner okay?" Crow asks.

"Ahhh… Ask me in a few hours, after we're home. I need to do a couple more things to it."

He looks at me uneasily. "...okay…" Crow makes a move for the Blackbird, then begins to roll it slowly back out of the gate.

Yusei, visibly still wound up from the duel, pins his eyes on me and says, "What did he want?"

"...Andore?" I retort. "He wanted to go out."

His face loses a little of its color.

"You don't have to freak out on me like everyone else inevitably will," I say, brushing past him. "I get it's 'the competition'. I had my fun. And I'm not looking for anybody anytime soon."


	46. Sun In Your Eyes

"To make a long story short, my life is in fucking shambles."

Audrey looks at me over the rim of her glasses. "That's not a feeling."

"What about 'all my friends are mad at me or they really hate me'?"

"So that's paranoia, fantastic."

I flop onto my stomach on the couch. "Were you listening to me when I was telling you about Aki?"

"I doubt she hates you, Silvan."

"Then why won't she talk to me?"

"My best guess would be pride." Audrey sets her notebook down on her lap. "You said something that rubbed her the wrong way, but you were right."

"You don't know I was right!"

"Well, do you think you're right?"

"Uh… yeah, but—"

"Good," she says. "The reaction you're describing makes me think she's keeping her distance because she's trying to convince herself whether you're really right or wrong. But just based on what you've told me, you're looking out for your friends and that's all."

"Well, yeah! It's not like I'm being petty, what reason would I even have for it?"

Audrey shifts in her chair, noticeably uncomfortable. "Well, I can't tell you what either of them are thinking. I don't know Aki and I couldn't tell you a single thing about Yusei if I wanted to."

"Is he still seeing you?" I say. "I told him to."

"Yes, he comes in once every couple weeks. More if there's a lot on his mind."

"Good, he listened to me."

Audrey sighs out her nose. "Anyways. I doubt anyone hates you. If Aki takes this as a license to be angry at you, that's on her. You put yourself in a very precarious situation by telling her to back off of him for her own sake."

"Well, if Yusei is as emotionally like me as he's kind of insinuating he is, then it's not going to end well! Because then Yusei, because he's Yusei, isn't going to know how to let her down easy and she's going to think that him being emotionally unreachable is something she can fix because she's so keen on feeling obsessed over again—"

"If she's looking for a Divine stand-in, then the best way to help her is to set her up, like she wants, with someone who'll make her feel loved in a way she isn't used to," Audrey interrupts. "Some people need others to make them feel worth something. Aki might cope that way, by filling those voids instead of trying to close them up. She needs to be taught that there are other ways to feel loved than what she knows."

"But I don't—I don't know how to do that if she doesn't talk to me."

"Well, if she's smart, sooner or later she'll realize that she needs you to feel loved, too. She might have an epiphany and realize that you know her better than anyone and you can help her."

"I… guess."

"What about the WRGP? That's on Saturday. Are you feeling good about it?"

"Well… no? I got laid by one of the guys we're bracketed with."

"Oh, that's… awkward."

"I KNOW." I put my hands over my face. "It was at the WRGP party a couple months ago, I thought we were both on the same page about it, but he wants to go out…"

"He wants to go out? Who is this person?"

"His name's—Andore, he's from some European Circuit—"

"Andore Covarrubias? Of Team Unicorn?"

"How—Did everyone know this guy was famous but me?!"

"Either you didn't do your research on what type of people were coming for this tournament," Audrey retorts, "or you didn't ask."

"Well, I'm not playing in it, so of course I didn't research!" I say. "And—I never ask! Dude! That's the point of a one night stand!"

Audrey laughs. "That part's on you, Silvan."

"Well! How was I supposed to know we were going to get bracketed together? There are forty-some other teams in the circuit!"

"Sixty three percent of bets made in Neo Domino on circuit wins as of yesterday have been placed on Team 5D's," Audrey replies. "Thirty percent have been placed on Team Unicorn."

" _Sixty three percent_? You're shitting me."

"I check regularly. For Yusei's benefit and my own, I'm placing my bets Saturday morning before the deadline." She looks like she's trying to fight off a smile. "But, beyond that point—I would have guessed you'd be matched early on. It's a desirable bracket. Team Unicorn is a prominent Euro Circuit team. Their winning ratio is six hundred to one."

"Well fuck!"

"On the flip side, Jack Atlas alone has a winning ratio of three hundred to one—the 'one' being Yusei. Who doesn't have a ratio because he hasn't lost on record; record, of course, includes the supernatural maelstrom that happened eight months ago. Every man, woman, and child in this city is well aware of what kind of skill Yusei has."

"Wait, why do we have more winning bets?"

"You're all kind of Neo Domino's home team. More people live here than came here for this tournament, and everyone wants a little easy money if they can get it."

"Didn't think we'd win easy money, but okay," I say. "I digress. That's a thing that happened. And I know everyone is peeved at me about it."

"It'll be awkward, sure, but it's not the end of the world. You don't appear to have any attachment to him, so it's not going to get in the way of your work."

"I mean! I think he might have developed an attachment to me! Because he wants to go out!"

"That's definitely his own problem."

"But my friends still seem maaaaaaad," I groan.

"So talk to them," Audrey responds. "Clear the air. With those that are willing to talk to you, anyways. You know I can't talk to your friends for you."

"But that would make my life so much easieeeeeeeer."

"Alas. Solving all of your problems for you is a bit above my pay grade."

Once the session is over, I say an exasperated goodbye to Audrey, she says good luck, and I head off into the parking lot. My duel runner is parked further back today.

My phone's buzzing, and I think it's probably Yusei calling me for something but when I pick up…

"Hello?"

" _Hey, Silvan_."

"Crow?" I lean against my duel runner. "...Are you okay?"

" _I need you to come get me_."

"Okay. Where are you?"

" _I'm at the hospital on Main_."

Oh. Oh no. "I'm on my way right now. I'll be there in ten, tops."

Why would Crow be at the hospital? Did someone get hurt? Did he get hurt? Does everyone else know? I have so many questions.

I book it to the hospital, though, and find a place to park outside as quickly as I can. The person at the front desk directs me to a room on the second floor—where I find Crow in a plastic brace.

The doctor, or nurse, or whoever's standing there with a clipboard looks at me and says, "I'll leave you two alone for a moment."

He shuts the door behind him and Crow immediately starts to cry.

I don't know what else to do besides try to comfort him. I've never seen him like this before. I move across the room to him and close him in my arms, listening to him until the crying just sort of fades out to hiccups.

"What happened?" I murmur. "Are you okay?"

"I was… I was out on a ride. Just trying to practice," he sniffles. "Then something went wrong with my duel runner. Something just… locked. And I went flying."

I turn my head a little to look at the brace pinned like a bandolier across his chest, keeping his shoulder stationary. "Your shoulder."

"I landed on it. The doctor said it's… neuro-something-or-other."

"Oh, Crow…" I press my cheek to the top of his head. "Why did you call me?"

"I… I thought maybe you were the least likely to yell at me."

"Why would anyone else yell at you?"

"I—the WRGP is in two days." He sounds like he's going to start crying again. "I ruined everything."

"Crow, this was not your fault."

"But I could have… I—"

"No, I don't care," I snap. "You couldn't have done anything. Don't you blame yourself. It's no fault of yours."

"What are we going to do?" he whispers.

"I don't know, Crow. I couldn't tell you."

"How am I going to tell the others?"

Somebody knocks on the door. I take a step back out of the hug, hand still planted on Crow's good shoulder, and the practitioner opens the door back up: standing with him are Jack and Yusei.

"What are you—"

"—doing here?" Yusei finishes. "I felt something go wrong."

Crow presses his hand over his lame arm; a familiar motion I've learned that they all do. My Marked friends.

"Why are you here?" Jack asks.

"Crow called me."

"Oh, he called you, did he?" Jack puts his hands on his hips. "Were you gonna let us know about this? Huh?"

"Lay off of him," I snap. "He doesn't need to be chided right now."

"What happened?" Yusei asks.

"Mr. Hogan says he was riding on his duel runner when the wheels malfunctioned," the practitioner answers. "It threw him to the ground."

"How bad is he?"

"Brachial plexus neuropraxia," he says plainly, flipping over a couple pages of Crow's chart.

"Great," Jack retorts. "What the fuck does that mean?"

The practitioner stares flatly at him. I can't tell if he expects Jack to know what it means, or if he just doesn't know how to explain it in layman's terms.

"This part right here," I say, gesturing to my collarbone, by my shoulder, "has this nerve bundle called the brachial plexus. Neuroplaxia is when those nerves and muscles pull enough to possibly tear. It happens when you fall at a high velocity and your head goes one way, but your shoulder goes another."

"It's a common vehicular injury, luckily it wasn't intense enough for the nerves to rupture," the practitioner adds. "Anything worse would have required an operation."

"So, no surgery needed," Yusei says. "Just some physical therapy, I assume."

"Correct. It'll take a month or two of avoiding strenuous activity to heal correctly."

"A month or two," Crow groans, covering his face with his mobile hand.

"So, that's it! Two out of three wheelers. Fantastic!" Jack says.

"Will you shut up?" Crow snaps.

"Hey," Yusei cuts in. "No fighting. Jack, you know fully well Crow didn't mean for this to happen. He doesn't need to be egged on about it. And Crow, we could all do better without you reacting to Jack being a dick. We'll figure something out. Okay?"

Jack and Crow both audibly inhale.

"Crow, I'll find you a physical therapist," I say. "I have a lot of doctors, one of them is bound to know somebody to refer you to."

"Fine." Crow slides off of the examination table, landing on the floor with a grimace. "I want to go home."

"Let me get you a sling, first," the practitioner exhales.

Crow insists that I stay with him for all of the collateral; I wait with him while the practitioner gets his X-Ray and a sling and writes him a prescription for pain medication. Jack and Yusei just kind of stand off to the side, Yusei every so often imploring Jack to keep quiet.

"Where's your duel runner?" I ask.

"They towed it to Daily."

"Oh, okay. I can get you a family and friends discount, then. Have it fixed up in no time."

"Thanks."

"Yeah, of course."

"Will you take me home?"

"Mmhm."

Jack and Yusei both look like they want to protest at that, but they let me handle Crow. They follow us silently, and Crow loads onto the back of Hiraeth. We form a line, Jack and Yusei keeping to my tail, and I drive as carefully as I can on the way back to Poppo Time.

I park out front and Crow hops off of the back of my runner. As he trudges toward the front door, Yusei says to me, "Want to come inside?"

I don't have anything else to do today, so I say, "Okay."

Bruno is playing a video game on the desktop when we get inside; he has a long wire trailing out of the hard drive to connect the game controller, and he hits the mute when we come in. "Hi friends!"

Crow slumps onto the couch. Bruno takes a second to observe the mood in the room.

"Well, what do we do now?" Jack snaps, almost the instant the door shuts. "Are we just sitting here and feeling sorry for ourselves, is that it?"

Yusei, in that slow, steady voice he uses when he's about to totally lose it, says, "Jack. Why don't you make yourself useful and go get Crow's prescription filled."

"Are you—"

"Please."

He doesn't look happy about it, but he complies. When Jack's out the door, Bruno says, "What happened?"

Yusei shoots Bruno a look that says ' _later_.'

"...he's right, though," Crow says after a moment. "Jack is. What do we do now?"

Yusei looks to me for answers.

"Ah, well…" I twist my fingers nervously, needing to fidget. "It's still within the rules to compete with two wheelers. But you take a Life Point deduction."

"Worth one person, then?" Yusei asks. "8,000 to start instead of 12,000?"

"That's right."

"That's not a fair fight." Crow stands and starts to pace. "8,000, even for you and Jack, isn't fair. It's not enough. I have to suck it up."

"Crow, you'll hurt yourself worse if you ride in your condition," Yusei warns.

"I'm not going to let you two suffer because of me!"

"Well I'm not going to let you completely screw yourself over, either," Yusei snaps.

In the silence that follows, I squeeze my hands into fists. Bruno's chair squeaks as he turns aimlessly in circles.

"...Silvan," Yusei says after a long moment. "How comfortable are you with the idea of a circuit duel?"

That question settles in my stomach for a second. I look at him, not sure if I'm expecting it to be a joke, or…

"You mean." I swallow. "Like, me as second wheeler. Me in your tourney."

"Yeah," he says. "Would you be willing to do that?"

"...you're comfortable enough in my dueling skills to even consider asking me that question?"

"Of course," he says. "You know every card in my deck and Jack's. You're incredibly likely to know the cards our opponents handle, much more likely than me or Jack. You know how both of us play; and you're a quick learner, you can adjust to how anyone else plays."

He's asking me to take Crow's place. Really? _Actually_? I still need a moment to take in that question.

Somebody knocks on the door. Bruno springs out of his chair to answer, and I try not to think about how I can feel Yusei looking at me and waiting for an answer.

"Aki!" Bruno says from the doorway, which makes the feeling in my stomach worse. "What are you doing here?"

"Is Crow home?" I hear her shoes on the stairs. "I felt…"

When I look up toward her, she's already here in the garage with us; she practically looks right through me, sees Crow, and gasps, hand outstretched toward him, "Oh, gods, your shoulder…"

"Don't," he says. "Don't say anything."

She stares at him for a second, face pinched like she's dying to say something, and then she turns on Yusei. "Can he ride?"

He purses his lips. "...no, the doctor—"

"What's the plan? For the tournament."

Yusei blinks, like he's still trying to process her questions. "We're trying to deal with it."

She doesn't even hesitate. "Let me do it."

"...what?"

"I want to pull some weight. Let me take his place."

"Aki, are you… You're sure? You would do that?"

"I ride every day," she says thinly. "I practice all the time. And you know I'm no stranger to a circuit. Let me do it. Just until Crow's better."

Yusei opens and closes his mouth, looking for a way to—presumably—invite her onto the team, and Crow kicks the coffee table. It makes this gross screeching noise as it skids toward the desktop, and the sound itself makes Bruno yelp.

"Crow," Yusei booms as Crow storms past Aki, up the stairs to the door.

"Make all the decisions for me, Yusei. Go for it," he says. "It's not like it matters, anyways."

" _Crow_!" Yusei says again—much more hopelessly this time. I don't know what it'll help, but I go off after him.

He's halfway across the square by the time I get to my duel runner, and I really don't know what else to do other than ride up to him, shove him a helmet, and say, "Get on."

I'm expecting him to throw it back at me, or ignore me, or… something, that isn't 'comply and get onto the back of Hiraeth'. Usually it's not as easy as this. Getting someone angry to submit to being taken somewhere.

From experience… I know it's best to take Crow somewhere where he can unwind and vent, if he needs to, without worrying about anybody following us. I'm wondering why it's me he's decided to trust today—but I pick him to trust, too. And I take him somewhere I've never taken anybody else.

Now we're in the middle of Daimon; I park my duel runner in an alley around back of this strip of shops, and Crow follows after me in a way that tells me he probably doesn't recognize this area.

I hold the door open for him as he asks, bewildered, "You took me to a coffee shop?"

"Mmhm. We can sit over here."

He follows me toward the window, near the back of the cafe, where I gesture to a booth to the far left.

"What do you want?" I ask. "It's on me."

He scrunches sheepishly down in his side of the booth. "Don't spend money on me."

"Oh, hush up. You're upset and I'm trying to make it a little better, let me treat you."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. It's okay. I promise."

He sinks a little lower.

"Crow, I know what you like. I'm going to get you coffee no matter what."

After a second of silence I roll my eyes and leave him there, in the booth, to go to the counter and order; black coffee for me, a mocha for Crow. The barista gives them to me in pretty coffee cups with saucers. When I set them down in front of Crow, he just sort of murmurs, "...thanks…"

"It's just coffee, Crow. It's not like I'm buying you a house."

"I know, but I don't… want people to buy me stuff if…"

"If it's not in my budget?" I ask. "Don't worry, I'll make up the difference next week. Let me do something nice for you. You really don't treat yourself as often as you should."

"It's not like I have the time. Or money."

"Well, I know that's because Jack's always the one treating himself. I don't treat myself enough, either, so if you ever need to unwind, we can do it together." I lift my coffee cup up to my lips.

"How'd you find this place, anyways?" he asks.

"...I used to come here when I was in Arcadia."

I can see him swallow. "Oh."

"I'd spend a few months collecting allowances Seria would give me," I say, looking out the window at that row of familiar blue shop awnings outside. "The tattoo parlor I used to go to isn't too far from here. I'd go there and get some ink, a couple of piercings… but even if I hadn't stacked up the money for that, I'd come here and get some coffee. Just to see what it would feel like. Being on my own in the world."

He turns his cup toward himself a little. "...when Kiryu got arrested, we all went our separate ways. Yusei and I just sort of stopped talking. I moved out of Martha's place and started being on my own all the time. I thought he, Jack, and Evan had forgotten about me. Then Jack was on TV. Then it was Yusei. I was still stuck in Satellite. The both of them got out and they didn't even bother to tell me they were going."

I tap my fingernails nervously on the sides of my cup. "So Yusei and Evan aren't the only ones still on that."

"We're all entitled to feel some type of way about it, I guess." Crow frowns. "We all got a taste of being on our own in the world."

"It's different, though. Being alone the way I was. Never really being on your own, but wishing you were. It's… a different hopelessness."

"I know. I can't even try to understand what life was like for you in Arcadia, but I do know a lot about hopelessness."

I watch him absentmindedly pick at the plastic tabs on his brace. "...is that why this is so major for you?"

"...a lot of reasons." Crow shakes his head. "There's that. The Jack and Yusei thing."

"You really feel a need to prove yourself? After everything?" I ask. "After the Dark Signers?"

"Don't you?" he says.

"What does that mean?"

"Don't you feel the need to prove yourself after Arcadia? Don't you spend every day trying to prove that you can survive after it? Survive and be better?"

"...I guess so."

"I need… I need to justify this mark somehow. I left Team Satisfaction before Yusei did—I wasn't there to support Kiryu like he or Evan were, so I guess Yusei felt abandoned for a while. Him leaving Satellite felt like a revenge on Jack and me. And I tried making up for it, I tried helping during the Dark Signers stuff, trying to apologize with actions… and, what? Some deity thinks I deserve to be a hero?"

"You didn't fight because you felt like you owed Yusei, Crow, you fought because your home was in danger," I say. "You think you need to prove your strength in public? Is that it? Everyone needs to see that you're capable the way they saw Jack and Yusei?"

"Well, I…" He slumps against the windowpane. "I left my kids in Satellite. To move in with Jack and Yusei, I left 'em with Martha. My justification for that was the WRGP. I was going to give them something to be proud of me for, something other than outrunning Security. They'd be able to watch me, and—and know that a Satellite-born kid could amount to something great. Jack and Yusei are too individual, too untouchable at this point to be anything more than an idea. I'm… I'm still tangible. You know? I wanted them to be able to look at me and say, 'wow, I could do that. I could be great. I could make Satellite proud, too'."

"You can make your kids proud without being loud about it, Crow. And you will. They already think you're phenomenal. I saw it in their faces, even back then. You're not letting them down."

"But is it enough?" he asks. "Will it be enough that they don't hate me for giving them up?"

"I don't think they have the capacity to," I say. "You're not selfish, Crow."

"Even if I'm not, would they understand? How badly am I disappointing them by getting hurt like this?"

"Listen," I say, reaching to put my hand over his, "You don't have to prove anything to anybody but yourself, Crow. Your kids know what you are. They know how many kinds of strong you are. Whether or not your business with Yusei and Jack is squared away, they know how strong you are. And they fucking respect you for it. You will get better, and when we make it to the finals, you'll be back in the driver's seat. There's nothing you could have changed, and there's nothing you can do now except try to get better."

He shakes his head a little. "How many times have you given that speech?"

"I give it to myself every day," I say. "Some things, you just can't change. Sometimes you land in a bad place, whether or not it's your fault. Whether or not you deserve it. But afterward it's your job not to let the hard days win, no matter how much you want them to. If you don't see tomorrow then you'll never get to help build it."

"Yusei—Yusei told me you decided to testify against Divine."

"...yeah, I did."

"You've got guts, Silvan. Even when you were fifty pounds lighter and I could see the shapes of the bones in your arms, you had guts. I've always respected you for that."

"I respect you, too. For the kindness you showed me starting the day we met, and for every single day since then."

Crow picks up his cup, at last. "You've been a good friend to all of us, Silvan. You haven't even known all of us for a year and you treat us better than some of us treat each other."

I shrug. "You guys are all that I have. You're the reason I was able to leave Arcadia, you're all the life that was waiting for me."

"Hm."

"The reason I stayed for so long was because I didn't have anywhere else to go—there was nobody in the world for me outside of the Movement."

"And, what. Just on a whim, you went with Yusei?"

"Well, you know the story." I take a drink. "It was pure luck. He saw me at the Fortune Cup and put two and two together. It was a chance, maybe the only one I'd ever get, so I took it."

"I'm glad you did. We're all much better off that way."

"What do you mean?" I scoff.

"I mean, I've never seen Evan as aloof as he is now. He was always so… serious. And sad. And Yusei had started getting really quiet up until that last time I saw him. Even Jack is much less argumentative than he used to be."

"Yeah, but you can't attribute that to me. Times have changed, and so have you."

"Well, sure. But it's not like you haven't been part of that change. You, Aki, Ruka and Rua… you helped knit the rest of us back together. And maybe we're still not a real team, but we're better than we were." Crow shrugs. "I don't see any of them here trying to cheer me up."

"Well, I—you called me, Crow."

"I know," he says. "And you must trust me, if you brought me here to your little secret spot. Shouldn't that say enough?"

"I… haven't brought anyone else here," I admit.

"Not even Aki?"

"No," I scoff. "When we were in Arcadia, Aki was always allowed to leave whenever she wanted. We were never outside at the same time. Even now, this place is just… my piece of the past."

"Thank you for sharing it with me. Really."

"Thank you for picking me to be the person to trust today," I say. "You didn't have to call me. And you didn't have to choose to come here with me."

"I know," Crow says. "But out of anybody else I could have trusted, I figured you'd be the one that wouldn't leave me waiting in that hospital room."

"That… That really warms my heart." I turn my cup on its saucer. "...Yusei's probably going to let Aki take your place. I hesitated for too long."

Crow scoffs. "If you called him and said yes right now, he'd take it whether or not he'd given Aki his approval."

"You don't mean that."

"Oh, like it isn't obvious that she does half the things she does to try to flirt?" He retorts.

I nearly spit out a mouthful of coffee.

"She's not subtle," Crow says. "I mean. You know as well as I do that Yusei's fucking clueless. But the rest of us are preeeeeeeetty clear."

"Is… I mean… Who else knows? And for how long?"

"Jack and I pinned it the second she popped in asking for him to teach her how to ride with her eyes all googly." Crow rolls his eyes and lifts his cup to drink. He's getting more comfortable now, I can tell with the way he's sitting. "I'm not in love with the prospect of her volunteering because it means she can try to get involved with him. Again."

"Aaaaaaaah. Ugh. We're not. Exactly. Talking right now. Because of that."

"Oh, boy." Crow leans on his good hand. "More drama!"

"Well, I…" I lean back into the booth and stare at the ceiling. "Yusei and I had this really odd conversation a little bit ago where he got really, really sad—"

"As Yusei tends to."

"—and kind of let on that he was like me in the romance department."

"'Like you'?" Crow asks.

"Like. Shut down," I say. "The reason I sleep around every time I get the opportunity is because I can't really feel half the time. I spent so much of my childhood teaching myself to shut off that I can't remember how to turn myself back on."

"Hm. Okay."

"I was just joking with him about something, and I guess I pushed a button, because he spilled that on me, and I figured I'd tell Aki to lay off of him." I shrug. "Before then, I was just kind of observing her, because she just seemed too scared to really try to deepen a relationship with him. But I know what it's like to be someone who has difficulty developing relationships, especially romantic ones, and it'd go south fast if she tried to get with him."

"I mean, I agree," Crow admits, "but tell me how?"

"Aki is… a very strong personality. You might have noticed."

He laughs.

"That's not at all a bad thing, but it's… it's tough for her to figure out how to deal with after Divine. He somehow alpha'd and beta'd her at the same time. She could answer to him and feel all safe and loved because he kept validating all the destructive behavior that he was teaching her. The more destruction she caused, the more powerful she presented, the more love she would receive. She doesn't know how else to be loved than that. In a box with no lid."

"So… she's looking for another Divine, is what you're saying?"

"Sort of," I say. "She's latched onto Yusei because she feels like he was a prominent figure in saving her. Like Divine. But she doesn't know how to seek his approval; she has no idea how to approach a conversation with him, because he's not fascinated with her like Divine was. And if what I'm afraid of happens, if she swallows her fear and tries jumping into a 'let's go out' scenario, he's going to tell her the same thing he told me."

"And, what? She's going to flip out?"

"Well, she's going to panic. And probably be really sad. And angry. Beg him to reconsider. Which would probably send Yusei into a downward spiral, because now he feels bad for rejecting her, except he can't lie and change his mind, because that would draw it all out and possibly end worse…"

"Okay, okay, I got you."

"I mentioned it to my therapist this morning," I tell him. "Because Aki hasn't talked to me since I told her to lay off. Which was like five days ago."

"That's fun." Crow takes a drink of his coffee. "...are you going to let her ride for you?"

"Sorry? Isn't that a question you should be answering?"

"Well, I… don't have much of a say in the matter. Yusei was, aggravatingly, right. I'll fuck my shoulder worse if I try to suck it up and ride. Someone has to take my place."

"Who would you rather do it?"

Crow shakes his head. "Loaded question. I don't know who to trust with a deck more. Your memory makes you a formidable opponent just to start out with. Aki's got a hell of a lot of tourney experience, from what I understand. But I know I feel less good about Aki stepping in for me if she's just doing it to get at Yusei."

"She seemed genuinely worried about you," I say.

"Yeah, I don't know. I need some proof for that."

"I don't want to step on anybody's toes," I say. "I won't do it unless you'd rather I take your place instead of Aki."

"Ahh, fuck you, Silvan."

"Forgetting that I'm not sure I trust myself with a dueling tournament, I don't want to make a bigger mess to wade through with Aki!" I say. "So there."

Crow sighs out through his nose. "...I'll talk to her, maybe. See if her heart's in the right place."

"I really think she was thinking of you, Crow, not Yusei. Is it that hard for you to imagine that people care about you?"

"More than they care about Jack or Yusei? Yeah, sometimes."

"Christ." There's a lot to unpack there.

"Sorry, was that dark? That was dark." He takes another drink.

"You're important, too, Crow," I say. "You're selfless and kind and so loyal. You love your friends and your kids and you're driven as hell. I don't know a single other Satellite who started their own company."

"Nobody would hire me!" He protests. "...ah, shit, I can't work with this fucking arm."

"Ahhh… employ Jack," I laugh. "He can make himself useful that way. And you don't have to pay him because it's your company and he's covering for you. And you share a bank account."

"That's actually not a bad idea!" Crow smiles, almost to himself. "Thanks for this, Silvan."

"Hey, anytime. I live for trying to do happy things. Every other day for me is a low."

"...will you do me a favor, before we go home, after this?"

"Sure."

"Will you drive me to Satellite? I want to see my kids. Break the news, probably." He exhales. "It's been a while since I've been to see them."

"They'll be happy to see you. And I'd be glad to bring you."

"Thank you."

I raise my cup toward him as something of a 'you're welcome,' and he raises his to clink it against mine. Crow, I realize, I am more grateful for than I am for most things. I'm glad he's here with me; I'm glad I get to be someone he trusts enough to confide in. I think of earlier this morning when he trusted me enough to cry on me. I used to cry in this cafe a lot—I've never shared this booth with somebody else.

Together, we sit there, solemn and silent, in my little piece of the past.

* * *

 ** _A/N: As you probably guessed, Andore doesn't have a last name in canon, but I gave him one because why not._**


	47. On The Rise

Audrey was right—we land the first Main Circuit duel.

Team 5D's v. Team Unicorn; I saw it appear on a billboard the other day. It's nearly 10 AM, and half the city has already closed up shop to watch.

There's a sweeper out making circles around the track, making sure everything is clean and ready for the duel in a couple of hours. I'm here early because the apartment was crushing me. And because I feel odd imposing on Kiryu and Evan. I mean, I know I live there, but… they need time to be together. And I feel odd being there while they're taking it.

Besides, it's nice to be here by myself for a little while. I can uncoil and breathe some fresh air before the stadium fills up and it gets loud enough that I can barely hear myself think.

I'm still thinking about Crow, and about the past few days we've had. The two of us have been talking in between all of his obligatory sessions with Aki. He did as he said—'talked to her'—and now he won't shut up about her. It's safe to say that she's the second wheeler for now. I have no interest in stopping her.

She still really isn't talking to me. I'm remembering Yusei asking me to take Crow's place before Aki. The way his voice sounded around the question. There's just… a lot to unpack in this whole fight. If I can even really call it a 'fight.' There's more I need to figure out about what's really on Yusei's mind. And I guess I just have to keep waiting for Aki to do something.

Anyways, I'm here. Alone. Living in the quiet for a while. I was never out and about in the stadium during the Fortune Cup, so… this'll be my first exposure. I'm finding it hard to imagine what all these seats look like filled up.

I can tell when they start letting people in, though. Dots start to move up in the big half-circle of seats in front of the pits, and Team Unicorn's pit area comes to life. They have two guys in the pits, both in those blue-orange-and-white uniforms with the unicorn on the breast. When Andore shows, whenever that may be, I'll probably have to go entertain him.

The guys show first; Crow, wearing his jacket draped over his sling, says, "Silvan? How early did you get here?"

"Early enough. I didn't want to disturb Evan and Kiryu."

"You know you can stay over with us anytime, right?" Yusei remarks.

"Yeah, I know." I stretch my arms over my head. "I just… don't wanna inconvenience anyone. Ya know?"

"You're not an inconvenience." I flinch as Yusei comes up my right side and moves a piece of my hair behind my ear. Normally it'd be a comforting gesture, but now I just feel stiff. "Are you okay? You seem really on edge."

"I'm just." I swallow. "I'm nervous about all this. Also dreading seeing Andore again. The works."

"Well, I can't do anything about Andore, unfortunately. As for all this? It's a little like when we first met," Yusei says, sliding into the chair next to me. "Only aboveground. And you get to see me play this time. You forget about it eventually."

"Looking forward to it," I say.

"I'm looking forward to playing on this track again," Jack says. "Fucking finally."

"Oh, don't rub it in," Crow retorts. "You guys have already played here."

"You'll be with us in the finals," Yusei tells him. "You can help take us home."

Crow settles in on my other side, noticeably grumpy. He's been doing a good job being as optimistic as possible since his shoulder diagnosis, but now that he's here and we're really doing this, I think he's just back to being really, really salty. Not like he doesn't deserve to be.

"Where's Bruno?" I say absently.

"He's waiting out front for the twins," Crow says. "I don't think they know where our pit station is."

"That's good of him. Evan should be here soon, too. I should text him." I slide my phone out of my jacket pocket and shoot Evan a quick text while Crow, inevitably, starts talking about Aki again.

"...she looked really good yesterday, too," he's saying. "Her speed took a big increase. She's almost beaten my lap record."

"Good," Yusei says absentmindedly. "We all need to be at the top of our game. Silvan, are you _sure_ you're all right?"

"I'm okay!" I insist, even though I feel less than fine. The stands are starting to fill and I'm becoming aware of just how many seats are in the Memorial Circuit.

Almost to make things worse, a voice calls, "Silvan! Have a little time?"

I feel myself deflate at the same time Yusei stiffens. "Please, just kill me," I say as I stand up.

Andore, waiting at the gate, smiles as I come his way. "Your lip looks much better than it did on Wednesday, love."

"You should've seen it a couple weeks ago," I retort.

"What did you do to it, anyways?"

"Would you believe I got in a barfight?"

"I'd be insane not to believe you could put a grown man on his back," he laughs.

"You're funny."

"Oh, crack a smile, love." He keeps brandishing that phenomenal gods-damned smile. "When we pound your team into the ground, I'll take you out to cheer you up."

That makes something like competition flare up in me. "When you lose, Andore, I'll try to remember that as a cute throwaway line to cheer _yourself_ up."

"Ooh, there's that fire."

From beside me, suddenly, a voice goes, "HEY!" and Evan, savior of my entire life, claps his hand on my shoulder. "Hi there!"

Andore blinks at him—visibly taken aback. "You have a brother!"

"Glad that's obvious!" Evan flashes a dazzling smile. "Evan. Nice to meet you."

"The pleasure is mine! Your lovely sister and I were just making dinner plans."

" _Andore_ ," I groan.

"I'll take you out when we win, love. Promise." He winks.

I open my mouth to protest, to fire back _something_ , and Evan goes, "WELL! Sorry to interrupt you two, but I need to steal back my second. We're getting close to competition time."

"Of course! Don't let me get in your way."

Evan hooks his arm in mine, and as we trudge back toward our stiff-looking team, I mutter, "Christ, I owe you."

"He's even prettier up close," Evan says.

"Oh, shut up. When did you even get here?"

"In the last five minutes, didn't you get my text?"

I check my phone as Evan guides me back to my chair.

 **Silvan Levine:** _where u at lover boiiiiiii_

 **THE TRASH MAN [Evan Levine]:** _dont rush me binch kthx_

 **THE TRASH MAN [Evan Levine]:** _im right outside lol_

Yusei says, "Thanks for that, Evan."

"Yeah, I saved her from going on a date, whoopee." Evan sits down to Jack's right. "That may have been the prettiest man I've ever seen. I'm trying not to be angry about it."

"I'll get Kiryu down here," I retort.

"Is Andore _still_ bugging you?" Crow says.

"He said he'll take Silvan out when they win," Evan responds.

"Guess we have to win, then," Yusei says; it's one of the most casual sentences I've ever heard come out of his mouth.

For the next couple hours or so, I just do things to distract myself. Bruno comes in with the twins, followed by Aki; she's wearing her team jacket over her red and black riding suit. Today, she gives me a very quick look. She averts her eyes the second she sees me looking back at her.

Evan finishes programming the pit stop sign and gifts it to Rua, who swings it around like an arrow-shaped light up sword until Ruka steals it from him and goes chasing him around the benches in the back. Jack starts doing push-ups for… some reason. Crow starts a game of tic tac toe with Evan on his arm. We all find Kiryu, far away in the stands, and take turns waving our arms at him to try to get him to wave back. Yusei sits beside me, leg bouncing. I watch the stands fill up. The sounds of talking, laughing, food vendors shouting, and airhorns, among other things, reverberate in my ears.

And when the stadium clock hits noon, we're on television.

I'm almost too mesmerized to notice the PA crackle on, the confetti exploding out of piping along the stadium overhang, the fanfare recording circling the track. Around me, my friends rumble to life. They seem to gravitate away from us at the computers, as if to give us space. All save for Crow, who remains inert, and Yusei, who seems to shift a bit closer.

" _Welcome, Turbo Dueling fans, to the event Neo Domino City's been widely anticipating! The World Racing Grand Prix_!" An MC booms. The crowd gets _so much louder_.

"Do you think he writes his own script?" I ask. I have to talk to keep my stomach from rising higher in my throat. "Or does he just wing it?"

"I dunno," Bruno shrugs. "You guys ready?"

"As we'll ever be," Evan tells him.

"There's not a lot we can fuck up, thankfully," I say.

"We'll see about that," Evan retorts. "Bruno, keep an eye on the cameras. Silvan, the duel runner scans."

"Gotcha."

Jack, who's been psyching himself up for the past fifteen minutes, pulls his helmet on and goes out to get his duel runner onto the track. "This should be over in, oh... Five minutes?"

"Good thing he's confident," I mutter.

"The bright side is that he has more confidence in a pinky than the rest of us have in our whole bodies," Yusei remarks from where he's sitting beside me. "Which is… good, I think."

"Happy thoughts, my friend. Happy thoughts." I feel a little hypocritical, saying it.

"Testing microphone," Evan says. "Jack, can you hear me?"

Jack's voice comes out of the speaker next to Evan's arm. " _Loud and clear!_ "

" _Our first match of this monumental event is between the pro-Turbo Dueling trio, Team Unicorn, and Neo Domino's very own Team 5D's_!"

"Why do they get 'pro-Turbo Dueling'?" Crow complains.

"Because they're actually professionals," Yusei says.

"I mean… we're kind of professionals… _maybe…_ "

" _Let's start this off with each of our two teams' first wheelers! He's a veteran duelist all the way from the European circuit—maybe you've heard his name! Ladies and gentlemen, the maverick of the motorway, Andore Covarrubias_!"

" _Maverick of the motorway_ ," I mutter. "Where's the MC sitting? I just wanna talk."

"You would know, Silvan," Evan teases.

Yusei shifts uncomfortably next to me. I say, "Do you _want_ me to fight you?"

"Was he any good, at least? Tell me he was good."

At this point, I'm fed up with deflecting. "He was excellent, thanks for asking."

" _Next, we've got a duelist who's more at home here in the Memorial Circuit than most! He's the King of the track, the Sultan of Speed! You know him, you love him—give it up for Neo Domino's own Master of Faster, Jack Atlas_!"

"Where do they come up with these shitty nicknames?" I ask.

"I don't know, but Yusei's wasn't bad," Evan says.

"Yes it was," Yusei retorts. "They called me 'Satellite's Shooting Star' at the Fortune Cup."

"Oh, that is kinda corny."

"Hey, where's Aki?" Bruno asks.

"Bathroom," Crow remarks. "She's pretty nervous."

"Well, I don't blame her," I mutter.

" _You know the rules, gentlemen_!" The MC continues. " _Since you've both got three players on your team, you'll begin with 12,000 Life Points each! Your turn to duel is over when you lose your 4000, and you must pass your Team's patch to the next wheeler in line before your opponent makes a lap in order to continue dueling! Duel runners, at the ready_!"

"Here we go," I mutter.

" _Watch and learn, my friends_!" Jack's voice comes out of the speaker again, crackly from how loud it is on the track.

" _On your marks... Get set... DUEL_!"

Jack takes off down towards the first turn; for a second, I think that Jack is going to nab the first play, then a burst of fire suddenly explodes out of the exhaust port on Andore's duel runner and shoots him around the bend.

"What?" Crow exclaims. "What the _hell_ was that?!"

Rua and Ruka come running over from where they've been standing against the gate. "Uh, am I wrong or did Unicorn guy's duel runner just blow up?" Rua exclaims.

"He used an overboost system, I think," Bruno says. I switch my analyzer from Jack's duel runner to Andore's.

"Why would he need that?" Ruka asks.

"An overboost system is designed to give a short, quick burst of energy that'll temporarily increase your speed," I say. "It can only be used once in a duel because it expends so much energy to speed up so considerably in such a short time. His duel runner will run a lot slower for the rest of the duel because of it."

"Yeah, so... Why?"

"He wants the first move," Yusei exhales.

"Wait, but that's not fair!" Rua asks. "Is that thingy illegal?"

"It's about as illegal as our program," Evan chimes. "Jack will just have to deal with having the second play."

Andore draws as they round the next bend. " _I summon Uni-Horned Familiar in Defense Position_!"

"A tuner monster," Evan remarks; he's got his eyes on a run down of the field.

" _Then, by removing from play a card in my hand, I can summon Monoceros to the field in Defense Position_!"

"And a non-tuner," I say. These aren't quite like the monsters that he used in his duel against Yusei; Monoceros is a Beast-type effect monster, like the last cards we saw Andore play, but... I guess we'll have to see if he pulls out any more Naturia or Baboon archetypes. I'm wondering what he's planning on Synchro Summoning.

" _Finally, I'll place two cards face down to end my turn_."

"No Synchro Summon?" I ask.

"He's got all of the tools for it," Yusei adds. "Now I'm curious about his face downs. I can see him trying to lure Jack into some sort of pitfall."

After Jack draws for his turn, the Speed Counter toll on the JumboTron ticks up to one. " _Since monsters exist only on your field, I can summon up Vice Dragon in Attack Position by halving its ATK_!"

"He's already going to summon Red Demons Dragon," Yusei muses. "I think he's falling into Andore's trap."

"What makes you say that?" Ruka asks.

"Don't you think that, if Andore wanted to make it a test of power between him and Red Demons, he would have Synchro Summoned last turn? The way he's set his field up definitely seems a little more well-thought out."

" _Next, I can Normal Summon Dark Resonator! By tuning him together with my Vice Dragon, I can summon the one, the ultimate, Red Demons Dragon_!"

The audience roars, loud enough to make the bones in my ears rattle. I press my hands over my ears to try and block it and the MC's commentary out.

" _Red Demons Dragon, destroy Uni-Horned Familiar_!"

" _Not so fast, now! I activate Uni-Horned Familiar's special effect! I can remove it from play by removing another card on my field from play, but you must continue with your attack_!"

"Uh oh," Yusei sighs.

"What? What's 'uh oh'?" I say. "I don't get what he's doing."

"It's got to be one of the face downs. Forcing Jack to directly attack him? He's either going to take out Red Demons, a chunk of Jack's life, or both."

" _I activate my facedown, Different Dimension Barrier - Lost Force! This card not only allows me to negate your attack, but it also allows me to deal you damage equal to your monster's ATK_!"

We all have this sort of group shudder; Yusei groans. "There it is."

Red Demons Dragon has 3000 ATK; Jack's already down to 1000 Life Points, and it's only the second turn. They make a lap as the damage calculates. Jack sets three cards down before ending his turn. Aki comes running into the pits behind us. "What did I miss?"

"Get ready to take the patch," I retort, not looking at her. I'm afraid I'll lose the ability to talk otherwise. "Jack just lost 3000 of his Life Points."

I think I hear her swallow. "...oh."

"You'll be fine," Yusei encourages her. "Just as long as you take caution."

Their Speed Counters rise to 2, and Andore draws. " _Due to Uni-Horned Familiar's special effect, I'm allowed to return it to the field! Then, I can Special Summon Monoceros from my Removed Zone in order to Special Summon D. D. Unicorn Knight, as well_!"

"Okay, _now_ he's going to Synchro Summon," Yusei remarks.

"With all three?"

"I don't know. I mean… I assume so."

" _Now, I'll tune Uni-Horned Familiar with Monoceros to Synchro Summon Thunder Unicorn_!"

More raucous from the crowd.

"I finally get why they're called 'Team Unicorn'," Evan says.

" _Since Monoceros was sent to the Grave due to a Synchro Summon, I'm allowed to Special Summon Uni-Horned Familiar back to the field! Next, I activate Thunder Unicorn's special effect_!"

"A special effect, _great_ ," Crow retorts.

" _I can reduce the ATK of one of your monsters by 500 per every monster I have on my field besides Thunder Unicorn_!"

"That's 1000," I say. "Evan, what's Thunder Unicorn's ATK?"

"Uhhh... 2200, it looks like."

"Great. There goes Red Demons."

"And two hundred Life Points," Yusei says nonchalantly.

" _On the turn I activate Thunder Unicorn's effect, I can't send any other monsters to attack—but that's fine by me! Thunder Unicorn, destroy Red Demons Dragon_!"

Jack's dragon explodes. Now he's down to 800 LP.

"Hey," I say at last. "These aren't the monsters that Andore used in your duel with him."

"Nor is it the strategy," Yusei wonders. "He was summoning mostly beatniks, now he's using traps and effect monsters."

"Fast Power," I say instantly.

"I'm sorry?"

"It's a deck build type. Creating quick, adaptable strategies through summoning multiple effect monsters. This reminds me of it, but... A lot of abilities in Fast Power builds are only activated once a card is removed from play."

"Silvan?" Bruno says nervously.

"Yeah?" I ask.

"I was looking at Andore's duel runner, and then I started looking at Jack's, and then I saw this—" he points at his end of the screen, where a part of the diagram of the Wheel of Fortune is blinking red.

"Wait, what is that?" I switch back from Andore's duel runner to Jack's. "Is... wait... the air intake system in Jack's duel runner is malfunctioning."

"Huh?" Aki asks. "A-Any chance you can fix that from here?"

"Not a chance," Evan says.

"I don't know what's going wrong with it," I add, "and we don't have the technology to tap into it from all the way over here."

"Okay, well, maybe it doesn't have to be fixed?" Crow suggests.

"An intake system is designed to redirect the exhaust when you lose a duel," Evan tells him flatly. "If he loses, there's no telling what'll happen, since there's no telling exactly what's wrong with it."

"We have to make him take a pit stop," I say. "He'll lose Speed Counters for every lap Andore takes while we look at it, but I'd rather he lose them than get hurt, or something."

The twins grab their arrow-shaped sign and hang it over the gate as Jack and Andore come around the turn closest to us. Jack, however, duly ignores it.

" _Jack_ ," Evan commands into the comm. "We just signaled you to get your ass over here. Where the hell do you think you're going?"

" _Can't risk the Speed Counters_ ," he says. " _I'm going to need them if I'm going to make a successful counterattack and win this turn_."

I lean over Crow to shout into the comm, "Your air intake system is malfunctioning, Jack, pull over before I Waste you over!"

" _This won't take long_!"

"You've gotta be kidding me," Crow mutters.

"If he's going to be difficult, all we can do is hope that the malfunction isn't large enough to cause some real damage," Yusei says.

"You're being oddly calm about this," I say.

"If I rile myself up I'm going to have a panic attack," he answers, "so I'm trying to avoid that."

I exhale and force myself to keep an eye on the blinking red light on the schematic of Jack's runner.

" _I summon Mad Archfiend_!" I guess I missed Jack's draw and the SPC raise, but I'm fine with it. " _Next, I'm going to activate Powerful Rebirth! This card allows me to bring Dark Resonator back from the Graveyard and onto the field, but with 100 more ATK and DEF as well as one more Level_!"

"More of Red Demons," Crow groans.

"Um, yeah, that's kind of forever been his endgame," Evan retorts.

" _Then, by activating Rage Resynchro, I can send Mad Archfiend and Dark Resonator to the Grave in order to bring back Red Demons Dragon with 500 more ATK_!"

Another cheer from the crowd. I'm wondering how many of them were diehard fans of Jack before the Fortune Cup last year. I know his loss then also lost him a lot of fans.

" _Red Demons Dragon, put Thunder Unicorn to rest_!"

Andore flips a facedown. " _I activate Dimension Trap! By removing Uni-Horned Familiar from play, I can also remove my Trap, Different Dimension Barrier - Lost Force, in order to activate it again_!"

"That's the card that took out Jack's 3000 LP," Rua complains.

" _I trigger my face down, Overpower! This card will negate and destroy your Dimension Trap_!"

"All right," Aki sighs, sounding relieved.

In the corner of the JumboTron, Andore's section of Life Points drops to 2700. " _I activate Parallel Section—I can add a Speed Spell I removed from play to my hand, and then draw one card_!"

Yusei exhales and turns to Aki. "Go get your duel runner."

"W-What? But Jack hasn't lost."

"Andore just put a Speed Spell in his hand at the end of Jack's turn going into his. Jack's got 800 Life Points left."

" _Oh_."

She sounds so shaken, so unprepared, that I have to look at her. "Hey. You'll be fine."

She actually looks back at me. Too scared to notice, or care, maybe. "But what if I'm not able to do anything? What if I barely scratch him?"

"I know you can do it," Yusei promises. He gets this expression on his face that I know means he has an idea. He cracks open the deck box strapped to his belt, starts going through his deck, then when he finds what he wants, he holds it out to her. "If you get to a point anywhere where you think you can't get any further, make this your endgame."

She stares at him. "Yusei, I can't take this."

"Sure you can. I just gave it to you, didn't I?"

"I... Okay." She gets her helmet off of the chair she's been sitting in and jogs off towards the gate.

"Good luck!" Evan calls after her.

"Interesting play on your part," I murmur. It was hard not to notice the card he gave her.

"Don't tell me it's not going to give her something to go towards if she feels cornered," he scoffs. "She's starting with a blank field; Red Demons is going to get destroyed due to Rage Resynchro, so she'll only have her deck to play with. I highly doubt Andore will expect my card among hers. Besides, if it gets that far, I'll inherit whatever she has on the field."

"You're already building a strategy," I say flatly.

"Well, I have been thinking out loud for the past ten minutes, if that wasn't your first clue."

" _I activate the effect of Speed World 2_!" Andore's voice drags me back into reality. Yusei and I look back towards the track. " _By revealing a Speed Spell in my hand, I can deal you 800 points in damage_!"

Evan stands up at the same time I see a change in Jack's duel runner on my computer screen. Just a second before I can feel what he feels. He reaches out like he can stop it.

The Wheel of Fortune's automatic braking mechanism activates and I can _feel_ the pressure change in the air as it suddenly backfires, loses its spoiler, and goes spinning out. The engine is fine, I'm sure, but the duel runner keeps going until Jack makes an attempt to step on the brakes and suddenly gets thrown out of the driver's seat and into the road. Crow, Yusei, and I begin to run towards the gate. The duel runner looks like it hits an invisible wall, stopping only a few feet away from Jack—Evan, Wasting against it, assumedly.

I'm about ready to jump over the railing when Jack's voice crackles on the comm, " _We'll get disqualified if you help me_!"

Yusei hurries back toward the computer. "What are we supposed to do, leave you there?"

" _I've got time. I can get back to the pits_." The microphone crackles like it was damaged in the fall. Jack hoists himself off of the ground and starts to stumble towards his duel runner. A few seconds later, he's shoved it up and is trying to get it to the gate.

"Wait, is this allowed?" Crow exclaims.

"Andore can keep taking laps until he has 12 Speed Counters," I say. "After that, ours start decreasing, and if they hit zero, we have to forfeit."

Crow mangles his hair with his good hand. " _Shit_."

"He's almost here." Yusei urges us. I can tell he's trying to keep his wits.

"Testing microphone," Evan says.

" _I'm here_ ," Aki's voice comes back.

Jack keeps pulling his duel runner along for what feels like forever, and we follow beside the gate until he gets close enough to us and reaches out to pass the patch on his uniform to Aki. She slaps it onto her arm and takes off.

"How many was that?" I pant.

"Barely enough!" Crow exclaims, looking up at the JumboTron. "Aki's got 1 Counter—Andore's got 12!"

"Shit, she was just in time, then!"

We rush to get to Jack, whose helmet has cracked in three places; blood is dripping down the side of his face and his chin is all scraped up. Yusei supports him on one side while I get him on the other, and Crow goes off to call someone with medical experience.

"Did Aki get out there on time?" He pants.

"Yeah, she did—she's out," I say.

"Good," he puffs, and then his head lolls onto my shoulder. It must've been quite the fall if he's gone unconscious. Yusei and I take him further back into the pits, where we can lay him down, and I get his helmet off so I can examine his forehead. There's a gash in it the length of my palm, which I guess was from how his helmet cracked.

"Damn," I mutter. I go rummaging around my bag, by the door, until I find some of the balm I brought for my lip.

"Can we do anything for him?" Yusei asks.

"Not without first aid," I say. I pat a little of my balm onto his scraped up chin, and Yusei looks for something he can use to wipe the blood from Jack's face. Crow comes running back into the room not long after with a couple of paramedics.

The three of us give them some space and try to take our worry for Jack away by focusing on the duel; unfortunately for us, it's all over the place. Andore's got 1500 LP and Aki's got 1800; Aki's field remains empty, while Andore's got Thunder Unicorn in play. He still has 12 SPC, which means he probably hasn't used any Speed Spells, and Aki has 4 SPC. It's already been three turns.

Aki draws a card; it's her move. " _I summon Witch of the Black Rose!_ "

"What did we miss?" Yusei asks.

"Aki took down Thunder Unicorn and a bunch of Andore's Life Points with Phoenixian Cluster Amaryllis," Bruno explains. "Andore took control of it, though, and brought Thunder Unicorn back to attack her directly."

"All right, then," I say.

" _I activate the effect of Witch of the Black Rose! I can draw one card from my deck!_ " She picks it out, and given the way she straightens up a little, I'm thinking she got what she wanted. " _Since I added it from my deck to my hand, I can summon Rose Fairy to the field as well_!"

"She's readying a Synchro Summon," I say.

"Andore had better watch out," Crow retorts.

" _Now, I activate the Speed Spell - Angel Baton! With this, I can draw two cards and then send one in my hand to the Grave_!"

"I wonder if she got what she wanted from that play," Yusei wonders. "She has the tools to summon Black Rose Dragon..."

"Maybe she's taking advantage of your offer," I retort.

"What're you talking about?" Crow says.

"Yusei gave Aki a secret weapon."

"Ooh, what kind of secret weapon?" Rua exclaims.

"You'll probably find out soon," I say.

" _I tune Rose Fairy with Witch of the Black Rose in order to Synchro Summon my ultimate beast—Black Rose Dragon_!"

I watch the crowd. It's tentative at first, but a cheer starts up for Aki. The last time she summoned Black Rose Dragon in this stadium, no one cheered for her. Even the MC makes some remark about how impressive it is.

"Ooh," Crow remarks. "Andore's on the JumboTron, and he looks kind of scared."

"Yay," Yusei says under his breath.

" _Now, I'll activate Star Siphon! With this card, I can select a monster on my field and summon a Siphon Token! By selecting Black Rose Dragon, I can turn my Siphon Token into a Level 7 monster! Next, by sending the top card in my deck to the Grave, I can summon Glow-Up Bulb_!"

"Yep," I say. "Why summon one when you could summon both?"

"Wait, what's she summoning?" Rua complains. "I want to know!"

"We're probably going to find out in a matter of seconds," Ruka retorts, from Rua's right.

" _By tuning my Siphon Token together with Glow-Up Bulb, I'll be able to Synchro Summon another monster that's more than capable of taking you down! Come forth, Stardust Dragon_!"

The MC and the crowd are even louder now—Aki summoned Yusei's (pretty well-known) ace monster, which is a big deal in theory and execution.

"Dude, you lent Aki _Stardust Dragon_?" Crow exclaims.

"Yes, and?"

"Nothing, that's just... Unexpected."

"Exactly." Yusei shrugs. "If Andore can crank out all of these surprises, so can we."

" _Black Rose Dragon_ ," Aki commands, " _destroy Thunder Unicorn_!" At the cost of 200 of Andore's 1500 Life Points, Thunder Unicorn disappears in a burst of yellow glass. " _Stardust Dragon, attack directly_!"

"Yes!" Crow exclaims.

"Wait," Yusei tells him.

" _I activate Dimension Equilibrium_!" Andore points across the track towards Aki's dragons. " _With this card I can end the Battle Phase as well as revive Thunder Unicorn by removing your Black Rose Dragon from play_!"

"Well, there goes one dragon," Bruno sighs.

"There's still one more," I say.

Aki sets two cards and turns the field over to Andore, who draws and takes Aki's SPC up to 5. " _I activate the Speed Spell - Speed Energy! By removing one of my Counters, I can increase Thunder Unicorn's ATK by however many SPC I have left times 200_!"

"Oh, yay, 4600 ATK," Crow groans.

" _Thunder Unicorn, destroy Stardust Dragon!_ "

Is it just me, or does he sound... Triumphant? This attack does end it for Aki, at least, if she doesn't have a facedown.

" _I play Half Counter! This card allows me to increase Stardust Dragon's ATK by half of the original ATK of Thunder Unicorn_!"

It doesn't save Stardust, but it's enough to temporarily save Aki. She's left with 800 LP—then I realize that she's in the same situation Jack was in.

" _Now, I can activate the effect of Speed World 2_!"

" _Not so fast! I activate my face down, Wicked Rebirth_!"

"Wait, what's that going to help?" Crow exclaims.

" _By paying 800 Life Points, I can revive one Synchro Monster in my Graveyard! Come back, Stardust Dragon_!"

"My turn," Yusei exhales. "Wish me luck."

"We're here if you need us," I say, looking up at him until I catch his gaze. "Good luck."

He almost smiles. "...thank you."

He retrieves his helmet off of a chair near the door before he goes off to get his duel runner. I watch him pull it around to the gate and Aki come in to pass him the patch—she says something to him and passes him the cards in play on her duel disk for him to inherit, and he says something back to her before he speeds off down the length of the track.

"Testing microphone," Evan says.

" _I've got you loud and clear,_ " Yusei responds.

"Hey, that was great," Crow tells Aki as soon as she gets to us.

"No, it wasn't," she grumbles. "I lost."

"Just because you lost doesn't mean you weren't great," I tell her. "You technically didn't lose, anyways. You sacrificed the rest of your Life Points so Andore couldn't take them from you. That's not a victory on his part, it's a victory on yours. You were great."

She stares at me for a long moment, then sits back down, her helmet clenched between her hands. Bruno tacks the scanning program to Yusei's duel runner as he begins his turn. " _I summon Max Warrior in Attack Position_!"

"Going on the offensive," I sigh.

" _Now, I'll send Stardust Dragon to attack and destroy Thunder Unicorn_!"

The damage calculation leaves Andore with 1000 LP, but I'm pretty sure Andore's going to bring the Unicorn back. I know it's going to stay down this turn, though, because Max Warrior has an effect that'll lift its ATK during the Battle Phase of the turn it's summoned. I know Yusei's going to use it.

" _I activate Thunder Unicorn's special effect! I can revive it from the Grave the turn it was destroyed in battle_!"

" _Well, Max Warrior has an effect of his own! During the Battle Phase of the turn it's summoned, I can give its ATK a 400 point boost_!"

It's a double KO, but Max Warrior takes Thunder Unicorn down with it for the rest of the turn and, hopefully, for the rest of the duel. Yusei sets a card before the turn ends.

During the Standby, Andore's SPC jump up to 10 and Yusei's jump up to 7. Andore only sets two cards and ends his turn.

"That's bait," Evan mutters. "Your boyfriend like to set traps and watch them spring, Silvan."

"Not my boyfriend," I say, for what feels like the millionth time.

" _By destroying a set Speed Spell you have on your field, I can Summon Card Breaker from my hand_!" Yusei calls. Automatically, one of Andore's face downs shatters.

"Okay, good," Bruno sighs. "Andore revealed that card earlier on to take Jack out; it was that Speed Spell, End of the Storm."

"Oh, shit, it is good he destroyed that," I say. "I'm glad _one of us_ has been paying attention."

"What does End of the Storm do?" Aki asks.

"You have to pay 8 Speed Counters, but it destroys all monsters on the field and deals your opponent 300 points in damage for every monster that's destroyed," Bruno explains.

"Oh, I see."

" _I play Magic Change_!" Andore flips over his second face down. " _On the turn a spell on my field was destroyed, I can inflict 2000 points of damage to both of us as punishment_!"

"He expected Yusei to take out End of the Storm," I scoff. "Unbelievable."

"Okay, wait, but now Andore's done!" Rua shouts. "Yusei can take on Breo now!"

"But now he only has 2000 Life Points," Crow points out. "And Team Unicorn still has two more wheelers."

"...right."

I'm thinking about what Audrey said about the odds; over sixty percent of betters bet on _us_. On Yusei. As he takes a lap in front of where we are, he waves. Andore may have gotten him to flash his cards at them, but Wednesday's duel was child's play. No one else I've seen matches Yusei's mind.

As he pulls around the track, Breo joins him and the SPC count ticks upwards again. Breo draws. " _I summon Bicorn Re'em in Defense Position! Then, I'll place two cards and end my turn_!"

"Bruno, is there any information anywhere about Breo's deck?" Evan asks.

"Not really," Bruno sighs. "According to all of the records I've seen, no one's really ever gotten past Andore before."

"Well, that's a feat, I suppose."

Yusei draws for his turn. " _I summon Dash Warrior in Attack Position! During the Battle Phase of the turn it's summoned, I can triple its ATK and send it to destroy your Bicorn Re'em_!"

"What's Bicorn's ATK?" Crow asks.

"800," Evan says. "He's just trying to triple the damage."

" _I play my face down, Negate Attack! I can negate your attack and end the Battle Phase_!"

" _I'll switch Card Breaker to Defense Position, then, and end my turn_."

"He hasn't used Stardust," Aki muses.

"He's probably trying to save it," Crow tells her.

Breo draws. " _I summon Mine Mole! Now, I can tune Mine Mole with Bicorn Re'em to Synchro Summon my Voltic Bicorn_!"

"More unicorns, fantastic," Evan sighs.

"Uh, excuse me, it's a _bi_ corn," Crow retorts, probably in the attempt to lighten the mood.

"There's a joke about Silvan somewhere in there," Evan responds.

"You had two other bi people within earshot and you picked _me_ for that one," I say.

" _Since Bicorn Re'em was used in a Synchro Summon, I can activate its special effect to send the top two cards in your deck to the Grave! And, since Mine Mole was used in a Synchro Summon, I can draw one card_!"

I'm wondering what the point of that was.

" _Next, I activate the effect of Speed World 2_!" The card he drew must've been a Speed Spell. " _By sacrificing 10 of my Speed Counters, I can destroy one monster on the field_!"

"Well, there goes Stardust," Crow groans.

" _I'm destroying Voltic Bicorn_!"

"Huh?"

"Bruno, what's Voltic Bicorn's special effect?" I ask.

"Hmmm... It looks like... If it's destroyed, both players have to send the top cards in their deck to the Graveyard equal to the level of the Bicorn."

"It's a level seven," Evan adds. "Seven cards."

"Whoa, wait," I say. " _That's_ what he's doing!"

"What's he doing?" Rua calls.

I count on my fingers. "Yusei's got 40 cards in his Turbo Dueling deck. He's drawn eight so far, Andore got him to sacrifice nine... That's 23 cards left in his deck. They're trying to get him to run out of cards and lose by Deck Out."

"How'd you assume that?" Bruno asks.

"Well, think about it. Yusei almost beat Andore last time, so they're running on the fear that he has the capability to beat them. They'd rather win by forfeit than by risking defeat and beating him fair and square."

"Dicks," Crow mutters. The play goes through exactly the way Bruno described, with both Yusei and Breo discarding seven cards.

" _I'll set two cards face down and end my turn_."

With that, Yusei draws another card and begins his turn with 12 Speed Counters. " _I play the Speed Spell - Accelerate Draw! As long as I have 12 Speed Counters and my opponent has less than 5, I can draw two cards_!"

"That's 20 now," I say. I wonder if he knows what Breo's doing. Either way, he's trying to draw something.

" _Stardust Dragon, attack directly_!"

Breo takes the damage, leaving him at 1500 LP. Then he flips a face down. " _I activate my Trap, Regretful Tuning! This allows me to revive Voltic Bicorn_!"

I guess Voltic Bicorn has the same ATK as Stardust, because they're on a replay and Yusei doesn't attack again. He doesn't want to risk losing Stardust, probably because he doesn't have the tools to resurrect it, and I'm guessing he also doesn't want to trigger Bicorn's effect. He sets a card before ending his turn.

Breo draws for his turn. " _I'll begin my turn by attacking your Stardust Dragon_!"

" _I activate Synchro Striker Unit! This card allows me to increase Stardust Dragon's ATK by 1000_!" Without that boost, the battle would end in Stardust Dragon and Voltic Bicorn both being destroyed. It's probably what I thought about before.

" _I activate Flattery! This lets me raise Voltic Bicorn's ATK by the difference between it and Stardust Dragon_!"

"Oh boy," Crow sighs.

"I'm guessing that wasn't just to take out Stardust," Bruno remarks. "Silvan, I actually think you're right about the deck destruction thing—since this fight ends in a double KO, Voltic Bicorn's effect is going to activate."

"Seven more cards," I groan.

As it's going down, Breo flips another face down. " _Now, I activate Tuning Collapse! If I just happened to destroy a Synchro monster of yours, I can force you to send cards in your deck to the Grave equal to the destroyed monster's level_."

Around me, everyone gives a collective groan. I glance towards the Team Unicorn section of the pits, where Andore is looking our way with a pretty boastful smile on his face. When he catches me looking at them, he almost tries to hide it, and then he gets up and comes over to the gate between our pit areas.

I'd ignore him, underneath different circumstances. But I'm curious as to what he wants to say this time.

"You look awfully worried, love," he says as he leans on the gate.

"Do I?" I say. "I'm just wondering if you win all your duels by Deck Out, or if you actually put up a fight."

He looks at the ground. Laughs a little. "Not my idea."

"Really? Maybe that's something you should be concerned about. Especially since that would make your dueling record much less impressive."

There's an enormous roar from the audience. I turn away from this apparently finished conversation, and when I return to the pits, I say, "What did I miss?"

"Well, Yusei just kicked Breo's ass," Crow remarks. "Miraculously."

"He's got four cards left in his deck," Bruno tells me.

"And 1000 Life Points," Aki adds.

I see Junk Destroyer on his field, which is a relatively forgotten Synchro monster of his; I don't think he's actually used it until now.

I steal the comm off of Evan's computer desk and turn down the speaker. "It's just me. You holding up?"

" _Just barely_." His voice trembles. " _I've narrowed down what cards I must have left in my deck, so I'm trying to build up a strategy off of them, but I don't know what to expect from Jean. And it's hard to make a plan with four cards._ "

"Well, you're doing a solid job not cracking under pressure."

" _To be honest? I didn't think I was going to get this far_."

"Well, we're rooting for you until the very end," I tell him.

I set the mic back down, and Evan reaches to click the speaker volume back up. He gives me an odd look as I move to sit back down.

Jean shoots out onto the track from Team Unicorn's pit section and catches up with Yusei. Aki smacks my hand and I look at her, feeling very confused as to why she hit me and as to why she's suddenly decided to talk to me again.

"I'll paint your nails later," she says. "Try to stop biting them for now."

Oh.

" _I summon Trident Warrior in Attack Position_!" As per the rules, Jean is going first, and he's got 6 Speed Counters while Yusei still has 12. " _When I summon this monster, I'm allowed to Special Summon a monster from my hand—Delta Flyer_!"

"A Synchro," Bruno sighs, reclining in his chair. He sounds like he's almost given up. "Wake me when it's all over."

"It's not hopeless yet," Evan remarks.

"Ev, he's got four cards left."

"You should have been here last summer, when he saved the world," I retort.

"Now that you mention it, we actually could've died," Crow adds.

"Let's save that for my therapist," I conclude, turning my attention back to the duel. Jean's Synchro Summoned something called 'Lightning Tricorn' and sent it to attack Junk Destroyer.

" _By removing Shield Warrior in my Graveyard from play, I can prevent Junk Destroyer from being destroyed this turn_!"

It saves his monster, but Yusei still takes 200 points in damage. Now he's within the reach of Speed World 2's effect, and when Jean moves his hand to take a card from his hand, I know he intends to utilize it. " _I activate the effect of Speed World 2! By showing a Speed Spell in my hand, I can deal you 800 points in damage_!"

" _I activate Damage Eater's effect from the Graveyard! If I'm taking direct damage, I can gain that damage back in the form of Life Points_!"

So he's got 1800 LP now. "Hm. That's an unusual perk."

"What?" Rua shouts.

"Breo took out a lot of Yusei's deck, but Yusei happens to have a lot of cards that get their effect activations in the Graveyard."

After Jean sets two cards, Yusei begins his turn. Three cards left. " _I activate the effect of Speed World 2! By paying 10 Speed Counters, I can destroy Lightning Tricorn and send Junk Destroyer to attack you_!"

Jean's Tricorn shatters, Junk Destroyer goes in for the direct attack, and Jean flips over a face down. " _My facedown, Reanimation Wave! This card allows me to halve my battle damage this turn as well as summon a Synchro monster from my Graveyard_!"

So Jean's Life Points fall to 2700, Lightning Tricorn reappears, Yusei summons Sonic Chick in Defense Position, and his turn is suddenly over. I don't know what Jean's going to do this turn, but Aki's gripping one of my hands pretty tightly to make sure I don't gnaw off my fingernails.

Jean draws. " _I summon Rhinotaurus in Attack Position! Then, I'll send Lightning Tricorn to attack and destroy your Junk Destroyer_!" The difference in ATK costs Yusei 200 of his 1600 LP. After that, Rhinotaurus destroys Sonic Chick. " _And, due to Rhinotaurus' effect, when he successfully destroys an opponent's monster in battle, he can attack again_!"

Oh, he can't lose now. That'd be too easy.

" _I activate Harmony Crystal_!" The card flips over on Yusei's end of the field. It's got to be one of his last traps. " _With this, I can remove a Synchro monster in my Graveyard in addition to another defeated monster in order to revive my Stardust Dragon_!" With that, Jean stops his attack, but I'm not sure Yusei is finished. " _In addition, due to Harmony Crystal's effect, I can deal you damage equal to half of Stardust Dragon's ATK_!"

That takes Jean down to 1450 LP. He sets a card before it's Yusei's turn again. He draws; two cards left. He can't be out of ideas just yet.

" _Stardust Dragon, destroy Rhinotaurus_!"

That battle damage takes Jean down to 750 LP. Now, I can't figure out if it's a test of points or a test of cards. Yusei's trying to take out Jean's Life Points before he runs out of cards, and Jean's trying to hold out for Yusei to run out of cards. Everyone around me has gone silent, like they've either run out of things to say or they really don't want to say anything.

" _I play Thousand Crisscross! Since my Life Points are below 1000, I can up them to 1000 three times before this card is destroyed_!"

" _I'll set a card and end my turn, then_."

Jean's turn begins with him activating a Trap. " _Superficial Peace! Due to this, neither of us can activate a Speed Spell or a Trap card this turn! In addition, no monsters can be destroyed this turn_!"

Something tells me that that's exactly what Yusei was relying on to get past this turn; there's a slew of Traps and Spells that I haven't seen him use that are probably in the Graveyard, but I'm wondering if a few of them could be in his hand.

" _Lightning Tricorn, attack Stardust Dragon_!" Since no monsters are to be destroyed this turn, Stardust stays, but Yusei's down 1100 LP. " _Because you took damage this turn, I can also activate Superficial Peace's secondary effect and destroy a set card you have on your field in order to draw a card_!"

Well, there goes whatever that was. Jean's turn ends with two facedowns, and then Yusei draws his second to last card. I'm trying to get a good glimpse of his face as he comes around in front of us.

"Gimme the comm," I say. Evan hands it to me. "You there?"

" _Please kill me._ "

"You know that won't solve anything."

" _Neither will anything I have. I'm down to one draw, and I doubt it's what I want it to be._ "

"You have to try _something_."

"... _I have one thing I can try. If Jean breaks it or expects it, though, I'm done_."

"Okay. That's okay. We'll be with you through the win or the loss. To the flippin' grave, my friend, it won't be the end of the world. Not this time."

Yusei places the card he drew on his duel disk. " _I summon Synchron Exploder! Then, by activating its special effect, I can resurrect a Tuner monster from my Graveyard—Junk Synchron_!"

"Level 5," I say out loud, handing the comm back to Evan. "Junk Warrior."

" _By tuning Junk Synchron together with Synchron Exploder, I can summon up my Junk Warrior_!"

"Wait, I think I know what he's doing!" Crow exclaims. "It's kind of outdated, and he only ever practiced it once or twice, but it might do the trick!"

" _I activate the Speed Spell - Speed Fusion_!"

"A _Fusion_ Summon?" Aki asks. "I see what you mean by outdated, Crow."

" _With this card, I can send both Stardust Dragon and Junk Warrior to my Graveyard to Fusion Summon Dragon Knight Draco-Equiste_!"

"I... have never heard of anything remotely like that card," I stammer.

"He got ahold of it after that whole Dark Glass thing," Crow says. "He said he was looking for something new."

I see—upon looking for that Accel Synchro stuff, Yusei decided on testing out Fusion Summoning. I'm surprised he didn't go digging up an archaic copy of Polymerization.

If Jean expected this, I'll be absolutely floored.

" _Draco-Equiste, destroy Lightning Tricorn_!"

"That thing has 3200 ATK," Bruno marvels. "That leaves Jean with 600..."

"But that continuous trap puts him back at 1000," Aki points out.

"Okay, wait, though," I say as Jean triggers one of his facedowns.

" _I play Return Damage! This ensures that the damage I would take is reflected back to you_!"

" _The special effect of Draco-Equiste allows me to redirect all damage dealt to me back at you_!"

So, that does leave Jean at 600. The blow from the Fusion monster sends Jean's duel runner spinning; it takes him a second to reorient. Due to the effect of Thousand Crisscross, Jean's back at 1000 LP, and he activates Lightning Tricorn's effect. " _During the turn Lightning Tricorn is destroyed, I can summon a monster from my Extra deck! Voltic Bicorn_!"

"Ah, damn, not that card again," Crow groans.

"But will he even be able to use its effect?" I wonder out loud.

" _I place a card face down and end my turn_!"

Jean draws, and then he sends Voltic Bicorn straight to attack Draco-Equiste. He's trying to utilize its deck-destroying effect, but I think Yusei was expecting that. He activates probably my favorite trap that of his, which is Scrap-Iron Scarecrow—it'll keep Jean from ending things so that Yusei won't have to lose immediately due to Deck Out. Jean sets a card, and he's done with his turn just like that.

In this next draw, Yusei's out of cards. If he doesn't defeat Jean in the next two turns, he'll have lost. " _I activate the effect of Speed World 2! By paying four Speed Counters and revealing a Speed Spell, I can deal you 800 points in damage_!"

Jean's continuous trap reactivates for the third time, pulling him from 200 LP back to 1000. Because of the third activation, Thousand Crisscross shatters into a million yellow shards. The next time Yusei deals him damage, it's going to stick.

" _Now, I play the Speed Spell - Overboost! I can pay the remainder of my Speed Counters to add two cards of my choice from my Grave to my hand, but I can't gain Speed Counters for the next three turns_!"

"Like he's going to survive that long," Crow mutters. Aki smacks him in the good shoulder.

" _Now, I summon Rapid Warrior in Attack Position! By activating its special effect and barring all other monsters on my field from attacking this turn, I can send it to attack you directly_!"

Rapid Warrior has 1200 ATK. This should end the duel.

" _I play Barrier Wave! By tributing Voltic Bicorn, I can negate your attack and switch all of your monsters into Defense Position_!"

Yusei, probably seeing nothing else to do, removes A/D Changer in his Grave to switch Draco-Equiste into Attack Position, and then he sets two cards. He's done all he can now.

"When he ends his turn, we lose," Bruno sighs. "That's it, then."

"He's hesitating," Aki says sharply.

" _Hesitating_?" I scoff. "Does he have a sense of right and wrong after all?"

After a few moments of nothing, Yusei activates a card. " _Summon Tax! If you summon a monster this turn, you take damage equal to half of its ATK_!"

" _I play the Speed Spell - Tyrant Force_!"

He's actually playing a card? Trying to end things fairly? I'm still trying to decide if there's any truth to Andore's claim, that the Deck Out idea wasn't his.

" _This will prevent any of my cards from being destroyed, as well as deal you 300 points in damage for every card of yours that's destroyed! Now, I activate the effect of Speed World 2 to pay 10 Speed Counters and destroy Summon Tax_!"

" _I activate the special effect of Draco-Equiste! By removing Stardust Dragon from play in my Graveyard, I can give Draco-Equiste its ability and subsequently activate it_!"

That's a step in the right direction. It not only negates Speed World 2's effect, but it ensures that Draco-Equiste will return for the End Phase, at _least_.

" _Fine, then! I summon Hypnocorn in Attack Position_!" Because of Summon Tax, Jean suddenly has 300 LP left. This duel is so close, it almost physically hurts. " _By activating its effect, I can destroy a set card on your field_!"

Whatever Yusei's face down was, it's gone now, and the Speed Spell Jean activated earlier takes Yusei down to 600 LP.

" _Now, my second trap, Chain Whirlwind! I can destroy two more trap cards on your field_!"

There goes Scrap-Iron and Summon Tax. Jean and Yusei have equal LP now, and Jean's in the perfect position to end his turn and win the duel. He hesitates, however, just like before, and then suddenly commands Hypnocorn to attack and destroy Rapid Warrior.

But that—that hesitation. The need to end it honestly ends up being Jean's undoing.

The effect of Jean's Speed Spell would be enough to take Yusei out due to his attack, but he reveals the very last card in his hand: Stronghold Guardian. A Monster card that, when sent from the hand to the Graveyard, raises the DEF of a monster on the field by 1500. Jean, with nothing else to pull, loses the last of his Life Points and I sit there trying to figure out what kind of fucking magic Yusei just pulled.

The rest of us are sitting in the pits, wondering what just happened, when Rua drags us all out of it by shouting, "He did it! Yusei did it!"

"I don't believe it," Crow states.

"Well, believe it, because that just totally happened!" Evan shouts, throwing the comm down onto the desk. Bruno jumps up out of his chair and we all start screaming. Aki throws her arms around me. Crow's jumping around in a circle with the twins, until Bruno picks both of them up and starts to cheer.

Yusei pulls up to the gate and it becomes a mad dash to get to him; Rua throws himself at Yusei before he even gets the chance to get off of his duel runner. When he does get up, everyone just starts talking and hugging him like they still can't believe what just happened; the stands are in a similar chaos.

When I get my turn to hug him, he almost bowls me over; I might just be carrying him at this point.

"I knew you could do it," I say, but I can barely even hear myself over all the noise.

"At least one of us did," he laughs weakly. "I'm so tired, Silvan."

"I know."

"Hey, you know what this means!" Crow, behind us, is shouting. "We have to celebrate!"

"Well, we have to get Jack first," Yusei remarks. He looks back at me and says, "On the off chance he's out for the next race, how much would I have to bribe you to get you to step in for him?"

"If the whole WRGP is going to be like the last hour and a half, I'm going to die of stress just sitting in the pits before I actually get made to go out there," I retort.

"Says you! I did all the work!"

"Okay, but seriously," Crow pipes up. "Are we going to celebrate?"

Jean suddenly pulls up behind us; our entire group forms this half-circle around Yusei. "Good match," Jean begins, but his face says the opposite of his words. "We gave it our all—Andore and Breo fought pretty hard to win for our team, but I guess I broke that streak. I couldn't resist trying to challenge you. Don't think that this is the last time you'll fight us, because this wasn't Team Unicorn's defeat; it was mine."

"Jean!" Andore shouts; he and Breo come over to join us. "Would you stop trying to intimidate the competition? They did win, fair and square. Pretty impressively, might I add, and there's no shame in having a new dueling experience like this one."

"A _new dueling experience_?" Jean asks.

"Obviously," Breo remarks. "You've never actually wanted to beat somebody this badly before."

Jean kind of stares at him, almost in realization.

Andore shrugs. "I actually thought it was a lot of fun."

"We learned something, too," Yusei responds. "We've never really fought as a team until now."

He's right. Every time before, it's always been him. Even now. The last line of defense.

"Besides, you guys are crazy tough," Crow adds. "Next time, I'll be good enough to go at it against you, _and_ we'll be a little better prepared for your strategies."

"And hopefully Jack's duel runner doesn't fuck itself up again," I scoff.

"Give our regards to him," Breo suggests. "And, with any luck, we'll all meet again for a fair fight in the finals. You know, where I don't try to strip you of all of your cards."

"Sounds good to me," Yusei agrees.

I'm squished in between both Yusei and Aki when Andore approaches me and says, "Let my buy you a cup of coffee. As a _friend_."

"Friend _only_?"

"Well, of course." He flashes that aggravating, beautiful smile. "What easier way is there to get you to fall in love with me than to be your friend first?"

I sigh out my nose. "I'll get my coffee in a to-go cup and escape out the window in the women's bathroom."

Andore laughs at me. Yusei makes sure I'm looking at him when he rolls his eyes. I don't know what it is about this moment, but… for once I feel okay. Like there's not a thing I could think of that'll ruin this noise and this light.


	48. For Kicks

That evening, we gather in the guys' apartment to celebrate. Evan, Crow, Aki, and I cook a whole bunch of food for dinner, and Yusei, Jack, and Bruno set up the coffee table for us all to gather around and eat at. We leave the front door open to air out the room from the heat of the stove.

Jack, who escaped the clutches of the hospital with a mild concussion, pours me a glass of something that smells like oranges; I don't know what it is, but I'm tired, and I know he is too, so I put it down hoping it's alcohol.

"Silvan, I _know_ you did not just chug your fucking triple sec," Jack says. "We were supposed to make a toast!"

"You gave me alcohol on a day when I am extremely tired!" I say, trying to swallow away the ghost of the burn in my throat. "Not my fault."

He makes a face at me and pours another shot into my glass. "You get more _after_ the toast."

"Okay!"

He holds up his own glass. "To Team 5D's first victory, as well as to many more!"

We shout a cheers, and nearly everyone gets their drinks down. The twins, who were presumably given something non-alcoholic, put down glasses of (probably) orange juice. Crow and Jack take their shots like champs. Evan passes me his cup and sets soft eyes on Kiryu, who drinks like he's drinking a cup of water. Aki takes an experimental sip of hers and makes a face before pushing it away from her. Bruno just sort of stares at his glass. Yusei takes his shot, but makes this absolutely hilarious face after swallowing, presumably because of a disdain for the taste.

Then we all sit down to eat, jumping into conversation about the duel. Well, it's more like a fight, and it mostly involves Crow and Jack.

Rua begins it, involuntarily, by saying something along the lines of, "Y'know, when Jack and Aki lost, I got kind of scared for a second."

"What?" Jack retorts. "What do you mean you got scared? The hell? Don't you trust us?"

"Well, he's not wrong," Crow scoffs.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Jack snipes.

Crow gives a cheeky grin and says, "Dude, it's kind of to be expected. You guys were a mess without me."

Yusei puts his face in his hand. "Oh no."

" _What_?!" Jack shouts. "You don't even fucking know how hard that whole thing was! And it's not my fault that you couldn't compete because you got some lame injury!"

"Lame injury! What do you call that falling off of your duel runner shit?"

"I call that falling with style and special effects, _and_ I carried my duel runner to the finish line! You had to be shuttled to a hospital!"

Yusei leans over to me. "I live with these people."

"You dug your own grave in that one, pal," Evan retorts.

Jack and Crow, who are still giving each other the stink eye, had to be broken up by Aki, who's now sitting in between the two of them. Bruno, from across the table, says, "I'm constantly considering that we're all just people who tolerate each other."

"Crow and Jack are adoptive brothers, they're entitled to argue with each other," I say.

"It comes with the celebration," Yusei says. "Which is okay, because it took a lot of hard work to get where we are right now. Granted, we'll have to work harder to get further, but we should still celebrate while we can."

"That's a good way to think about it," I chime. "This is nice, I don't remember ever having a formal meal with you guys."

"Well, we've never really had one," Ruka points out.

"We've had some nice meals together," Aki says. "Though I wouldn't say they were _formal_."

"The last time I actually ate dinner at a table with at least three of the people in this room, I think I was fourteen?" Yusei wonders.

"Whew," I say. "Times have changed. I'm getting some water before I drink any more alcohol. You know. Balance."

"You can have mine," Aki says. "I really… don't want it."

I get up, reach for Aki's cup, and take her shot.

"Weaaaaaaaaak," Jack calls. He leans forward and pours another shot into Aki's cup, then mine.

"Well, now you're just enabling me," I say. I take the first shot, pause to swallow away the burn and the taste, then the second.

Crow laughs, and Jack claps sarcastically in my direction. I'm at the point now where the taste in my mouth is almost overwhelmingly foul, but my head feels pleasantly light. "Anyone else for some water?"

"Yes please!" Aki remarks.

"I'll take one, too," Bruno adds.

"Yusei?" I ask.

"Sure."

"Kiryu, Evan?"

"I'll help you." Kiryu rises onto his feet. "How's your head?"

"I feel _great_."

"Oh, I can tell," he laughs.

"Can you walk straight, Silvan?" Evan retorts as I follow Kiryu toward the cooler on the kitchenette.

"I'm buzzed, not dead," I retort.

"Silvan blacks out a little before me," Jack brags. "Wait for her to start singing, _then_ she's gone."

"Oh, yeah, that's the _only_ time you'll ever hear me sing," I retort. Kiryu starts handing me water bottles from the cooler, and I almost drop them because I feel something in the air.

Yusei turns around in his chair as Evan and Aki bolt up off of the couch; through the open door comes this beautiful, tall lady in a white riding suit, long sleek blonde hair swept out of her face. "Interesting. You throw yourselves a celebration after only one victory?"

"What's the harm in that?" Aki says. Do they know each other?

"There are quite a few people in this room that I've never met," she says, in this stunning accent that I can only imagine sounds like spoken cursive. "I'm Sherry LeBlanc. I'm a duelist participating in the WRGP."

 _Sherry LeBlanc._ What a name. Have I heard it before? I try to dig very hard for the memory of it.

"Did you make it through the first round?" Bruno asks.

"Yes. But, since Yusei rejected my offer, it was only me and Mizogushi."

"Which means you only had 8000 LP," Crow sighs. "Probably made it easier to lose than to win."

"She beat all three of them by herself," Yusei says. "Sorry, Sherry, I couldn't resist looking up your duel."

"It wasn't a big deal. If I want to reach my goal, I have to get to the very end of the tournament."

"Are you still looking into all of that stuff about Yliaster?" Yusei asks.

 _Yliaster_. I'm still wracking my brain over this Sherry woman, but… I know that name. It almost feels like a memory I shouldn't have.

"Yes; I recently learned that there's a connection between them and the Riding Roid called the Ghost."

Yusei's face goes totally blank. Oh gods. "That Synchro killer robot with the Meklord thing. I remember."

Oh, boy, does he.

"Hey, that's right!" Rua exclaims. "Okay, no one made a super big deal about it because all the evidence up and vanished, but we had this guy that transferred to our school called Lucciano, and he had one of those Meklords, too. This, like, number eight symbol formed around us and all the battle damage became real."

"Like when that Riding Roid of me showed up," Jack pipes up. "The eight, real damage, and all that."

"It was an infinity," I chime. "Not an eight." I have that rush of memories from the highway, from nearly dropping Rua, but I also remember knowing distinctly that it was the symbol for infinity on the Meklord. That fire in my fingertips, the one I haven't dared to touch, seems to pulsate.

Sherry turns her eyes on me, and _immediately_ it's like my whole body goes up like a match, I'm so warm. Maybe from the alcohol, maybe from the fact that I know she's definitely psychic. It could also be because she's drop dead gorgeous. There's always that.

The corners of her lips turn up in an almost-smile. She says, "You look like an old girlfriend of mine."

 _Oh shit oh shit oh shit_.

I almost flounder for longer than I'd like to; I think I can credit the alcohol for how fast I'm able to recover myself. "Do I look like a new girlfriend as well?"

She full on smiles now, and I almost fall out of my chair. "I thought about it."

There's this really, _really_ awkward silence for a second, but Sherry picks it back up with almost no effort. "The link between all three events leads me to believe that it's one person working in small, carefully planned operation."

"It makes me think that whoever's in with all the Meklord stuff has some pretty high tech," Bruno says. He doesn't seem at all bothered by the sidebar. "Like that factory we ran into when Yeager stole our program."

"You think it could have been Yliaster?" Rua asks.

"I don't know for sure, but it's definitely possible."

"You didn't see any evidence?" Crow retorts.

"I got knocked out."

"Well, all right then."

"Anybody know why Yliaster is trying to kill us?" Rua says.

"Doubt they're trying to kill us," Bruno assures him.

Sherry just nonchalantly says, "It's probably because you're a gaggle of Signers."

The room gets very quiet.

"You know about the Crimson Dragon legend," Yusei says.

"I wouldn't have asked you to join my team if I didn't," Sherry scoffs. "I know a great deal about who controls the hand of Fate in this city."

"Is that all you came to tell us?" Yusei retorts.

"I came to warn you, Yusei. Please be on your guard. There are more secrets I've yet to discover, and I do hope to see you all in the finals as friends rather than enemies."

With that, she goes back out the door, and I hear the engine of her duel runner as she rides away.

Evan goes, "Way to play, Silvan."

"What? That was the most beautiful woman I've ever seen and you think I'm _not_ going to flirt back at her?"

"I change my mind about the alcohol, I need a drink," Yusei retorts. "Jack, give me that bottle."

"Great time for her to show up and start name dropping Yliaster," Jack scoffs, passing the triple sec over to Yusei, who immediately lifts it to his lips.

"What even is that?" Evan asks. "Yliaster?"

"The first chaos in the matter of all things." It's quiet enough that I sound much louder than I am.

"...what?"

"I know that word," I say. "I… I don't know what it means. I mean, yes I do, but… beyond etymology. I don't."

Yusei says, "They're a secret society that controls behind the scenes events and things that happen in certain civilizations. They were affiliated with the First Signers. Goodwin was one of them."

"The first chaos," Crow echoes. "Makes sense."

"Sherry thinks they're up and at it again. With the Meklords." Yusei stares blankly at the amber bottle in his hand. "They triggered the Immortals. Whatever they're trying to trigger now can't be good either."

Kiryu, uncomfortably, says, "Rudger spoke of them. Pretty often."

"Really?" Yusei seems to perk up. "Even… back then? _That_ way?"

"He… he talked about them like they controlled the world. Like our actions were less to satisfy destiny—more to satisfy Yliaster."

"Interesting." Yusei throws back a bit more of the triple sec and makes a face as he swallows, but says, "Jack, do you have more of this? I need to stop thinking for twelve seconds."

"You're leaning too far out of your chair, I think you're good with what you got." Jack reaches over the table to take it from him. I didn't see how much of it he drank, but I also didn't peg him as a lightweight.

"We can talk about something else," Aki suggests.

"Nope. Can't do that." Yusei jumps up onto his feet. He's surprisingly… _springy_ for how lethargic his voice sounds. "Going for a walk."

"We can just change the subject," I say.

He whips around toward me and says, " _Nope_ , because _then_ I'm going to say something I'll massively regret, so. I'm just. Gonna take a walk. Walk it off."

"Someone better make sure he doesn't hurt himself," Kiryu remarks as we watch Yusei trudge up the steps and out the door.

Jack swirls the remaining liquor around in the bottle and draws an imaginary line higher up on the bottle, maybe halfway through the label—I didn't even see Yusei drink all of that. "He's gonna feel _that_ in the morning."

"I've never seen him drunk," I scoff.

"He's funny," Crow says, grinning. "Like you filled him with truth serum."

"I'll make sure he's okay," I say, standing.

Crow and Jack share quite possibly the _least_ conspicuous alarmed look I think I've ever seen.

"One of you wanna do it?" I retort.

"No! You do it!" Jack says quickly, before Crow can answer. "Have fun!"

I roll my eyes. On my way out, passing Aki, I swear I can feel her eyes on me. Who knows what Crow might have shared with Jack—what they might be teasing me about.

Outside, I find Yusei pacing around the clock tower, talking to himself. He keeps saying "Okay, Yusei, okay. You're fine. Breathe and blink. Breathe and blink."

"Why are we breathing and blinking?" I say. "You okay?"

He starts. "I'm just taking a walk."

"And talking to yourself."

"I'm going to fall asleep otherwise."

"You're going to _fall asleep_?"

"I'm so tired, Silvan. I'm absolutely godsdamned exhausted. I didn't want to do it myself this time but I had to. I did it by myself _again_."

"Whoa there. Maybe you don't need to walk. Let's sit down." I reach for him, pressing a hand to his shoulder to guide him down onto the curb. He leans into my fingers like a flower craving sunlight. When we sit, he crumples into me, head lodged into my collarbone. His hair tickles my chin.

"You wanna talk?" I say.

"Is me talking such a good idea? My brain's going way too fast."

"We have time. I'm patient."

"Liar."

I scoff. "Okay, fine. I'm patient with _you_."

"Don't know why," Yusei retorts. "Not like I deserve it."

"You stop that," I say.

"Will you hold my hand?"

It's not a particularly unusual request—under different circumstances, that is. Odd to ask in the middle of a different topic of conversation. Or to even ask at all. I slide my hand into his, and he slips his fingers into the spaces between mine.

"You're not alone," I tell him.

"You keep saying that," he says. "You keep saying that but I feel alone all the time. In my apartment. In my job. On the track. Sometimes I feel lonely even when you're right next to me."

That… that makes my chest feel tight. I don't quite know what he means by it, just that it gets me in a way I don't like.

"How do I fix that?" I murmur.

"I don't know. That might be a lie, but. I don't know."

"Might be?"

"I don't know what I want or what I feel anymore. I'm just tired."

"Tell me how I can help you," I say.

"You can't. I… I can't."

" _Yusei_."

" _No_ , I'm being good. I'm not selfish. I'm going to be good." I don't have the foggiest idea what he means. "I just want a day off. Do you think that's allowed?"

"You have one tomorrow. We don't have another race for a couple more weeks. Next is the loser's bracket, remember? So you can break next weekend, too."

"I don't mind being the hero," he babbles. "I think I'm getting used to it now. But I still want some help. That'd be really nice."

"You have it. I promise. Today was rough, I'll admit that. You were absolutely amazing, pulling through like that. Jack and Aki just need a little more time getting used to team tactics. And Team Unicorn didn't exactly play fair."

"I… know. And now Sherry showed up with all of her stupid Yliaster receipts… you going to sleep with her, too?"

" _Hey_."

" _Sorry_." He shakes his head. "I just want to go to bed. For a really long time."

"Then you should go to bed," I say. "I think you're really upset about today and the alcohol didn't help. Come on. It's cold out here. I'll get you some ibuprofen and you can hit the hay."

I pull him up onto his feet, my arm laced around his elbow. He reaches to brush my hair from my face. "Your eyes always look so wonderful. Starlight-y."

"Well, thanks. That's nice of you."

"You're welcome."

I usher him back from the clock tower, into the apartment; it hasn't been long, so everybody sets their eyes on us as Yusei breaks from me and announces, "I am going to _bed_ , wake me up if one of you dies."

"Where do you keep your painkillers?" I sigh as I pass the coffee table.

"Cabinet by the sink," Jack offers. "That was fast."

"He's just dead tired."

"Any funny anecdotes to share?"

"Not really. He's just talky and sad."

"Wild," Crow mutters. "Want me to give 'em to him?"

I wrap a couple of pills into a napkin. "Yeah, and leave some water next to his bed for him to drink when he wakes up. Is this as bad as he gets?"

"If he'd finished the bottle, you wouldn't have gotten him to shut up," Jack retorts. "Though what he did put down probably hasn't even set in fully quite yet."

"Oh, that's fun."

"Guess that's the cue to go home." Evan hops up. "The hero deserves to sleep, I think."

"Works for me," I say. "Evan, Kiryu, you guys wanna watch a movie?"

"I'll fall asleep halfway through it," Kiryu says, "but a movie sounds fun."

"Great. We can pick off the shelf under the TV. Anybody else wanna join?"

Crow glances up in the direction of the loft and then back down, toward Bruno, who's curled up underneath the table and probably gone to sleep. "I think we'll take a rain check."

"Gross, we have to be responsible," Jack retorts.

"Had to happen someday," Evan says.

"Can we stay for the movie?" Rua asks.

"Sure," I say. "I don't feel good about you guys riding home alone late, anyways."

"Sick!" Rua jumps up.

Rua says, "What kind of movies do you have?"

"Mostly historical romances," Evan says, rubbing at his temples.

"What?" I say. "I have particular tastes when I'm in the clearance movie section at the convenience store."

"There's a couple of actions in there, too. Maybe a horror. We can go through them all and see," Evan continues. "Aki, are you interested?"

"I'm… thinking about it," she admits. "Silvan, I want to have a chat with you first."

An uncomfortable silence ensues. So I'm not the only one that's noticed her ignoring me.

"...sure," I say at last. "Evan, why don't I meet you guys at home?"

Evan, reluctantly, says, "All right. Don't be too long."

He, Kiryu, and the twins file out the door. I turn to Crow. "Let me know how Yusei gets in the morning, whenever he wakes up. I hope he's able to sleep through the night."

"The alcohol should help knock him out. Hopefully nothing pulls him out of it. But I'll be over in the morning to let you know, if he doesn't tell you first."

"Thanks. It's been a rough… few months."

"I gotcha. Been a few rough _lives_ around here."

"Yeah, that's a little more right." I set my eyes on Aki, waiting for me by the door. "Have a good night, you guys."

Unusually, I'm not as afraid as I feel like I should be as I follow Aki out into the dark, silent square.

"...interesting change in attitude," I say, when I'm sure no one can hear us.

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, are we pretending you haven't been ignoring me for like a week?"

Her shoulders tense a little. "...I'm still thinking about what you said."

"Okay," I scoff.

"Parts of it were… fair…"

"Parts of it," I repeat. " _Amazing_."

"I just… All I wanted to say to you was that I'm sick of the silence. I'm trapped in my own head when I don't have you to talk to."

"So talk to me."

"I don't know how to feel right now," Aki says. "I'm confused about so much, and I… I still feel guilty about setting all of that on Yusei today."

"What's done is done at this point. Team dynamics and Team Unicorn's psyching out are both to blame. We've got two weeks for you three to get better, so there's no point in worrying unless you guys don't plan on polishing," I say.

"Regardless. I have a lot on my mind still. And what you said is… is still bothering me. But I don't want to live in silence anymore. I can't deal with one less support system."

"The silence was your call, Aki. I'm still here to support you whether or not you want me to be." I shake my head. "Are you coming to watch a movie?"

"No, I'd… it's okay. I have more thinking to do." She fiddles with her hands. "My parents probably want to celebrate, anyways. I should spend some time with them."

"Fine," I say, sick of the denial. She doesn't want me to stop being there for her to talk to, but she won't talk to me about why she's so stubbornly avoiding what I said. Maybe it's like Audrey said; pride? Maybe I struck too tender a nerve. But there's always the possibility I really hurt her feelings by poking the Divine problem.

Not like I don't have Divine problems of my own. Nightmares, the menagerie of the usual terrors. Creeping closer, steadily becoming more and more real and tangible. And I can't read her mind. I don't know what she's thinking unless she tells me.

"See you eventually," I say. I leave her there, in the dark square, against my better judgment. Maybe, _hopefully_ , she'll gather her thoughts enough to let me try to help. That's all I wanted in the first place. I think of Yusei, tipsy at the very least, telling me how fucking tired he is.

I wish I could help more than I do. Lately, I feel like all I ever do is make things worse.


	49. Two Steps Back

The week following our first tournament duel is pretty uneventful—work and kickboxing and therapy resume as normal—save for the day I give in and get coffee with Andore.

The only problem with that prospect, though, is that we barely pick up our cups from the barista when journalists with cameras start to swarm us, and we have to run for the hills. I do the second thing I never thought I'd do, as a result, and I invite Andore into my apartment.

We sit on the area rug, between the couch and the coffee table, and make conversation over our to-go cups—mine of black coffee, his of something he called 'café bombón'.

"It's a bit on the sweeter side," he says, trading cups with me. "If you don't mind that sort of thing."

I take a sip of his; it's thick and, yes, sweet. Andore makes a face when he takes a drink of mine.

"Black coffee isn't your speed, hm?" I laugh.

"Absolutely not," he says, passing my cup back. "How's mine for you?"

"Much sweeter than I'm used to, but I don't hate it. What is that in it?"

"I… don't know the words for it, unfortunately."

"That's okay. What is it in Spanish?"

" _Leche condensada azucarada_." He flounders for a moment. "It's… sweet milk, or something like that."

"Certainly tastes like it. It's good." I take a sip of my black coffee. "Oh, yeah, big difference in taste."

"How anyone can drink that tar, I'll never know." He takes another drink from his own cup. "Your apartment is nice. Very roomy."

"I think so, too. There's a lot of space to work."

"Hm, I haven't asked you about that yet. Where did you pick up your mechanic's skills? I can't say I've met many women that work for a Turbo Dueling team at nineteen."

I palm my coffee cup nervously. "It's in my blood, I suppose. My brother's, too. Our parents were scientists, our father an engineer, so… runs in the family."

"I suppose that makes sense. Must have been a lot of studying."

"Well, yeah, but." I pause. "It's easy for me to remember most things."

"That's certainly helpful."

"Yeah, has been so far." I incline my head toward the staircase—I can hear it creaking—and set my eyes on Kiryu, who's on his way down the stairs. He's wearing dark pants and one of my brother's tee shirts, so comically large on him that he's artfully stuffed it into his waistband to keep it from swallowing him any more. "Hi, Kiryu."

"Hey, I didn't know you were home."

"Yeah, I don't work until later," I say. "When does Evan get off?"

"Noonish. Not too much longer." It's then that Kiryu spots Andore. "Hey, aren't you… you're from Team Unicorn?"

Andore, charmer that he is, pulls himself onto his feet and reaches over the couch to extend his hand and a smile to Kiryu. "That's right! My name is Andore."

"Kiryu. Nice to meet you."

"Are you two roommates?"

"Yes and no. He's my brother's boyfriend," I answer.

"I'm here staying over for the tournament," Kiryu says. "That was a hell of a duel last week."

"Yes, Yusei certainly gave us a fight," Andore sighs. "And here I thought I'd get to beat him, even with a peek at his playing style beforehand."

"Yusei certainly is full of surprises," Kiryu tells him. "I didn't know you and Silvan were friends."

"We've known each other a while," Andore says, a coy smile in his voice.

"We met before the tournament," I add. "Before we knew our teams were in the same bracket."

"That's… lucky."

"I guess," I say.

"It was certainly a surprise to see each other again." Andore grins down at me.

"We can get out of your hair, if you'd like," I say, using the couch to pull myself up onto my feet.

"That's okay." He frowns. "You're not a bother."

"Okay," I say, and I must sound like I don't really believe him, because Andore throws me this very sad look that makes my face go warm.

Kiryu says, "I just came down to make some tea, I won't be here long."

Evan's been teaching Kiryu his coping tricks. Tea to calm him down is a familiar one. The two of them have taken plenty of walks together in the past couple weeks, too. I'm glad to have him here with us, and I can only hope that, eventually, it'll bring my brother more and more out of the cocoon he's built himself into. Even when I'm around.

Andore and I plop onto the couch together after Kiryu gets his tea and I become _very_ aware of how close his leg is to mine.

"Will you come watch my duel tomorrow?" Andore asks.

"What time is it at?" I ask.

"Early. First Main Circuit of the day."

"Look at you. Top billing." I scratch at coffee that's dried on the side of the cup. "I have work tomorrow morning."

"Hm. That's no good."

"I know," I sigh. "But I took extra weekend shifts this weekend to make up for next weekend. They'll almost certainly let me put it up on the T.V., though. Gotta have something for the clients to do."

"You're not closing up shop for the tournament?" Andore asks.

"Nah, nothing duel runner-related closes for tournaments like these. It's just in case the contenders need something."

"I suppose that makes sense." He picks at a thread on his dark jacket. "At least I can count on you watching me."

"Well, we do have to beat you again in the finals."

"Oh, hush, you."

I don't know how long, really, that we hang out, but we pretty much stay in the whole time until Andore has to run off for some training workout something-or-other with Breo and Jean to prepare him for tomorrow. On his way out the door, he lifts my hand and kisses the back of it as a goodbye. I don't… I don't feel anything for it. I don't feel anything for _him_ , and my stomach twists up because of it. He's handsome and kind and so full of light and life, and I think he could even be capable of putting something meaningful back into me, but I can't get my heart to feel anything except silent.

From there, and that uneasiness, everything seems to tumble directly downhill.

I go in to work the next morning, more tired than usual, wearing my red and black Team 5D's jacket and toting black coffee in a to-go cup. On a day like this, there's nothing to do—just wait and spin around in my desk chair at my workbench in the back and listen to the television from afar. The other guys that work here are older, some of them enough to be my father, and when they crowd around the tiny box set near the clientele counter, there's no hope of me getting a glimpse at the screen.

I'm playing around with scraps on my desk, building a little tower out of spare lugnuts and carriage bolts, and suddenly there's a cacophony I can't explain; I swear the duel just started, but the noise on the television is out of control. My coworkers, though… they're silent.

" _...this is unprecedented, folks, I have never seen a duel end this way before..._ "

Did Andore squash the other team so quickly?

" _...certainly never like this. We're waiting for the official say on Covarrubias and Binol, but without two of its wheelers, Team Unicorn is unable to continue!_ "

I… heard that right, didn't I? I rise slowly from my chair.

" _Yes, we have confirmation, Stavrou is unable to retrieve his team patch! You heard it here first, folks, Team Catastrophe, in a come-from-behind win, is moving on to the second bracket next week!_ "

I shoulder through the wall of people standing by the T.V.

There he is. Andore. Being hauled off in an ambulance. Jean, too. The camera pans in on Breo, standing, shocked, staring at his incapacitated teammates. My stomach careens upward in my throat.

The team on the field, Team Catastrophe, will be our next opponent, then. Three men. All marked. They smile in such a wicked sort of way at the reporters beginning interviews with them that it makes my blood boil. What did they do to Andore and Jean? How badly are they hurt?

We're one of five auto shops along the main drag in Neo Domino, so it'd be a surprise in any normal circumstance, but everyone is suddenly more pleased than I've ever seen them when Breo appears with Jean and Andore's duel runners. Yuri, my boss, is eager to try and assign a couple of the really big tournament enthusiasts to their runners, but Breo only pawns off Jean's. He asks for permission to come back into the garage, and I must look like a ghost, because he asks me if I need a hug. Tells me Andore was together enough to give the name of my workplace. Andore would prefer if I put his duel runner back together, he says, because he suspects I must need something to keep my hands busy on a day like this.

I feel like crying. Breo gives me that hug. He looks like he wants to cry, too, but he's probably keeping it together for publicity's sake. I remember the cameras that swarmed me and Andore at the coffee shop and figure that Breo must have it much worse after all this.

Andore's runner, mercifully, isn't too much of a mess. The nose is crunched up, the tread on the back tire is overworn, and the handlebar he must have fallen on is bent inward, but it certainly isn't totaled. I pull the road data from its (luckily intact) CPU and give a copy of it to Breo on a flashdrive. He stays with me, watching me work, telling me about the duel.

Apparently, what happened is a complete mystery. Andore's duel runner appeared to fail, and he lugged his duel runner Jack-style back to the pits to pass his patch to Jean. Then Jean's duel runner did the same.

It's far too unusual to ignore. And it helps that I'm bitter about it. I can't find anything unusual in the road data, though. Just an odd spike of air pressure that registered in Andore's rear wheel before the crash data registered. Almost like his rear wheel locked.

My shift ends right at noon, and by then, I'm done with Andore's runner. Breo asks to keep it here until Andore is well enough to come get it himself, so Yuri has me store it in the back garage behind the building. Then, as if to try and untangle this knot in my stomach, I accompany Breo to the hospital to go see how Andore and Jean are doing. Some guy that introduces himself as Team Unicorn's publicist meets us there and helps us wade through the crowd of reporters trying to get into the building. It's way too quiet in the lobby, as opposed to how loud it was outside.

A few floors up, we're able to see Andore and Jean. They both look pretty okay, save for some scrapes and bruises, and Andore is bandaged high up onto his cheek. Breo takes a seat in a chair, saying nothing, and I can only stand looking at the two of them—fast asleep—for so long.

And then it gets even worse.

In the hallway, I hear hysterical voices I recognize. I slip out of the room, leaving Breo to himself, the image of Andore bruised and bandaged still fresh in my mind, and I find Aki's parents in the hallway. Her mother, sobbing. Senator Izayoi holding her.

" _Hey_ ," I say when I see them. It's the first time I've spoken above a whisper in a few hours. "What happened?"

Mrs. Izayoi only paused sniffling to look up at me. "My _girl_ ," she's babbling, tears still pouring down her cheeks. "My _rose_ …"

Senator Izayoi says, "Did you come here for her, too?" He sounds choked up.

My voice sounds so, so hollow when I say, "What happened to Aki?"

He points, the door a little ways down the hall, and I can't even remember making the walk to the door before I see my own hand on the handle. Inside, I register two things.

Aki. Inert. In the hospital bed. Her hair's been pulled back from her face, haphazardly, like someone did it in a rush, and her head has been bandaged from the crown of her skull to right over her eyebrows. The EKG next to her bed beeps slowly. Steadily.

From the chair next to the bed, Crow stares up at me. His Team 5D's jacket draped over his shoulders. Arm in his sling. His eyes are all red and puffy. He sits leaning forward, always prepared, always ready to take flight.

"How did you get here?" I ask. "How did you…"

"I ran," he says in a small voice. "I felt it, and I dropped everything and ran."

That's it—the breaking point. I'm so tired and already so uptight about Andore that I can't stop myself. I'm shaking and crying and Crow's on the floor with me, letting me hide my face in his jacket, and I can't understand why so much bad has happened in so little time. Why I wasn't there to help.

I feel like I can hear my own heart pounding through the floor, like my blood is trying to break free from my skin. Who did this? Why wasn't I there? What happened?

Yusei, suddenly there, suddenly with his hands around my wrists, tries to get a look at my face. He looks as tired as I feel.

"Hey," he murmurs. "You'll be okay. Breathe. Tell me what happened."

"I don't know what happened," I say; my voice breaks in several places. "Today I had to go to work. Then I had to fix Andore's duel runner. Now he's in the hospital and so is Aki but _I don't know why_."

"Okay," he says. "Come here."

I fall forward into his arms, against his chest. His breath moves my hair.

"Andore's okay, if you were wondering," Yusei says. "Minor bruising. Scrapes. No fractures. He just needs some rest."

I don't say anything.

"...doctor said Aki's a little worse for wear. She got thrown and her helmet cracked just right and gave her kind of a nasty concussion. Gash on her forehead and all. Three weeks of rest, and she should be fine."

A _concussion_. Three _weeks_.

"It's not your fault this happened, Silvan. None of us were there, none of us could have done anything."

"If you want someone to blame," Jack's voice, splintered, emotional, says, "blame Team Catastrophe."

Catastrophe. Those grinning men on the TV. That was them—they hurt Andore.

"Bruno went to collect Aki's duel runner," Yusei continues, "so he could get the road data to confirm. We just need data from Andore and Jean."

Breo has Andore's. He probably has Jean's, too, I was too out of it to make sure, but… I can't quite get the words out.

"We think Team Catastrophe is purposefully making people crash," Jack says. The both of them are… so quiet. So calm when they speak. "That they might be psychics, or _something_ , using real duel damage or…"

"We think they crashed Crow, too," Yusei says.

"I'm gonna kill them all," Crow says. His voice is thick, and now that he's talking, too, I become aware of his nose pressed in against my shoulder. "Next weekend, when we see 'em on the track, I'm gonna kill 'em."

"No, Crow," Yusei breathes. "We're not letting you get hurt worse. We'll find another wheeler, we'll figure out how to stop them, to expose them, even, and we'll do it the right way."

"I'll be the next ante," I gasp, at long last. My throat feels all tight and it's a lot harder to breathe with all the mucus in my nose. "I'm dueling next weekend. And none of you are going to fight me on it."

Yusei stares at me. "...okay."

"No argument?" Crow retorts. "One of us is going off to get hurt, and there's _no argument_?"

"I can do it," I sniff, trying to rope myself back in. "I can. I swear it."

"I believe you," he says. "We're going to make a plan. We have a week to figure this out."

We're all there, in a pile on the floor, for I-don't-know-how-long, until a nurse comes in to clean up the untouched glass of water and the vase that mysteriously shattered. We gather ourselves back together, help each other up, and trudge out into the hallway. I feel drained. Ready to keep crying. The last time I talked to Aki, I was so annoyed with her, and now she's hurt. I'm angry at myself for it.

Together, we all drive back to Poppo Time. Bruno is already home, looking at what I can only assume is Aki's road data on the desktop. The wreckage of Aki's duel runner is strewn across the floor, and Yusei doesn't stop me from beginning to pick up the pieces and put them back together.

"So Silvan says she's going to take Aki's place," Jack begins.

"Really? You're kidding," Bruno marvels.

"No," I say flatly. Nobody asks for clarification.

"Well, all right! What's our strategy, exactly?"

"I'm just going to fuck them up," I say.

"Okay, but we actually have to expose them _before_ we fuck them up," Jack points out. "And I'm first wheeler."

"But we're on rotation," Yusei cuts in. "Aki would've been first wheeler, Jack's second wheeler, and I'm still third. Next, I'd be first, Aki would be second, and Jack would be third. Which means Silvan's first."

"What's the plan?" I ask. "What was the Team Unicorn duel like?"

"It's probably going to be a pretty rough match. We didn't get there in time to see anything, but… it looked bad," Jack remarks.

"I think Silvan should go on the offensive," Yusei amends. "You have a more aggressive strategy, and I think it'll be more effective against that Hook the Hidden Knight thing."

"I can be aggressive," I say.

"Don't go overboard, though. If you get too offensive, you could slip up."

"Noted." I start to remove body pieces from Aki's duel runner so that I can get to the inside and later smooth the dents out of the metal casings. I catch Crow's eye; he's still looking at me like he desperately needs to say something.

"Out with it," I say. "Crow."

That makes Yusei and Jack go absolutely silent. Bruno just keeps clicking away at the desktop, like he's in a completely different world than we are.

He shifts in the desk chair. "This whole... Thing. It probably won't make much sense to you, but I wanted to step back in for Aki."

"Crow... Your shoulder is still fucked."

"I-I know, I just... I want to make it up to Aki for filling my place, especially since what happened to us was kind of the same. It's also sort of personal gain for me, because I know that they aren't expecting me to step back up after being hurt, I can put them in their places, and I don't want anyone else getting hurt. After seeing Andore and Jean... I feel like it's better for me to go, because it won't make a difference that I'm already pretty useless."

"Crow, there's no logic in that argument. You can't duel. I see you cringe when you pick up a spoon with your other hand. The neuropraxia could get worse. It could go from a pull to a rupture. You could lose those nerves and never get them back."

"I'm willing to take that risk. I know how to be careful. If you'd just trust me—"

"It's not that I don't trust you, Crow, I'm _scared_. If I can keep you from getting hurt worse, then I'm going to do it."

"I think that it's unnecessary for you to feel obligated to step up because no one else can. Do you even want to duel?"

I swallow. "Yes."

" _Really_?" he sounds startled.

"Just because I don't do it a lot doesn't mean I don't want to," I say. "All of my cards were taken away from me when I was growing up because I was a useless duelist."

"You're… You're not useless, Silvan."

"But I _was_. And I will be if I keep letting people do things for me," I say. "I'm doing this, Crow. I'm trying to be somebody C would look up to."

That makes the silence even more uncomfortable.

"You are somebody C would look up to, Silvan," Crow murmurs. "You've come this far."

"I have a lot further to go," I tell him. "Trust me. I need to be the one to do this."

"I want to be part of it too, though." Crow shakes his head. "What they did… targeting me, and then Aki… they need to pay for it."

"And they will," I say. "I'm a psychic, and no matter what the past says, I'm a riding duelist, too."

"But you're not invincible, Silvan."

"If there's a way for me to die," I say, "I haven't found it yet."

He doesn't look at me for a long time. "Take my deck, then."

"...why?"

"I can still help that way. I can still be some type of support."

"...okay. I can do that."

Yusei says, gently, like he's only trying to make a suggestion. "Is that a good idea? Taking Crow's cards?"

"Have you ever even used Blackwings?" Jack scoffs.

"I'm familiar," I say. "And I will look over them more than once. Before that, though, I'm going to put Aki's duel runner back together."

"Let me help you," Yusei suggests. "You've had a bad day, so if it were up to me, you wouldn't be doing any work at all."

"Thanks," I mutter.

Then, ostensibly making everything even _worse_ , there's a knock, and then Evan peeks through the front door. "Thought you might be here."

"What's up?" I say.

"This, uh…" he opens up the door a little more so he can come in. "This came in the mail for you."

We meet halfway, and I accept this crisp white envelope from him with my name on the front. Everyone is quiet enough that the only thing I can hear is the paper ripping.

 _Dear Ms. Levine_ , the letter reads, _it was a pleasure to receive your correspondence, and we are eager to connect with you again concerning the details of Ms. Lola's lawsuit and your testimony. We are extremely grateful for your cooperation. Please find enclosed a subpoena to appear in court to testify in the referenced matter at the scheduled time._

 _While this matter is slated to be of little legislative importance, criminal proceedings will be held and are expected to attract a large public presence, including The Security Maintenance Bureau. At this time, it is not known when we will need you to testify, but we will notify you with further details closer to the proceeding. Please be advised that we consider your testimony possibly the most pivotal to the success of our case._

 _Sincerely,_

 _Uzoamaka Miyamoto_

The date on the subpoena is less than a month out.

"I need to lie down," I say.

Yusei grabs the letter from where I dropped it, and as I situate myself underneath Aki's incomplete duel runner, I can hear him breathe out sharply through his nose.

Nobody tries to coax me out.


	50. Broken Glass Sparkling

I can feel my heart hammering in the back of my throat. I toy with my helmet and breathe in through my nose.

"Okay?" Evan asks, his hand skimming my shoulder.

"Yeah," I breathe. "I don't wanna fuck this up."

"You won't. I have faith in you."

I think of Aki in her hospital bed and heat courses through me. I _have_ to win. For her.

In the past week, I've been working to try and keep my mind busy. In between the usual activities, I've been practice dueling using Crow's Blackwings and using every little bit of spare time I have to piece Aki's duel runner back together. Her parents, who have been at the hospital almost every second of every day, tried to pay me for it until I just stopped answering their calls about it.

Aki's still under. They've been giving her a lot of medication so she can sleep, since apparently, whenever she wakes up, she'll be in a lot of pain. One piece of good news is that I've been able to speak to Andore; he's doing well, pissed as all hell about Team Catastrophe, though. He was discharged from the hospital a few days ago, and he's in the process of debating with Breo and Jean about leaving the city, now that they're officially out of the tournament—something that I'm… not sure what to think of.

Today, we're in the Main Circuit again. My shiny, new riding suit is like a warm second skin. I look at the scores of screaming people in the stands and wonder if this is real. If I'm really about to duel in the same place I first tasted freedom. And with so many people watching me.

Yusei's hand rests on the back of my neck. "You good?"

"More or less," I admit. I can see Breo and Andore in the audience with Kiryu, Ushio, and Mikage. Ushio and Mikage are dressed like they're going to work, Ushio in his uniform and Mikage in her prim and proper blue suit; Jack tipped them off about Team Catastrophe, so they'll be ready when we expose them for cheating. Meanwhile, Breo and Andore are wearing these almost hilariously obvious disguises to keep anyone from recognizing them; hoodies, hats, sunglasses, the works. I think Jean may have been still too salty to show up and support us.

Yusei rubs a little at my neck, like he's trying to relieve the pressure I'm carrying in my shoulders, and then awkwardly steps back. "You look good."

"Thank you."

"Hey, Silvan?" Crow comes out from the back room with Jack. They pass by the twins, who are heading to stand where they usually do at the gate. Out of the corner of my eye, I spot Team Catastrophe watching Crow from the pit section next to us. They start to pretty noticeably whisper to each other.

"Yes?" I ask, feeling breathless.

"Good luck," Crow says. "Remember to breathe."

"I'll… try." I glance back at Team Catastrophe's pit. "Somebody remind me one more time."

"The guy with the black hair is Nicolas. He's the leader. Hermann's the bigger guy with the reddish hair, and Hans is the guy with the pointy nose," Bruno tells me.

"Okay," I say as I watch the big red-headed guy, Hermann, adjust his helmet and head out toward the duel runner in front of their pit section. He's the one I'll be facing first. Oddly enough, I don't feel anything from them. None of them feel like psychics.

Evan claps his hand on my shoulder and leans in to kiss my forehead. "Good luck."

"Thank you."

Yusei hands me the Team's patch and I stick it on over my forearm. "Silvan?" he blurts, his voice a little choked up. He's standing on the gate channel now, looking at me as I make my way to my duel runner.

"What is it?"

He opens and closes his mouth. "Be safe."

"I will." I slip onto the back of Hiraeth, secure my helmet over my head, and pull out to the starting line. Out from behind the pits, the stadium is so much bigger. The MC starts to talk, and I focus on my duel runner rumbling underneath me to keep myself grounded. _Don't choke, don't choke, don't choke._

" _For today's headlining duel, we've got a semifinal match between surprise standout, Team Catastrophe, and Neo Domino's very own Team 5D's! Dueling first for Team Catastrophe—he's a mean fighting machine—Hermann! Standing in for Aki Izayoi this week, we've got a newbie, Silvan Levine!_ "

" _Testing_ ," Evan's voice comes in through the earpiece we fitted in my helmet just for today.

I swallow. "Hi."

" _Sound a bit more excited_ ," Crow's voice says, and I can hear the smile in it.

" _If she's got stage fright, she's got stage fright_ ," Yusei says hotly. " _Remember what I told you. Keep an eye on the time ticker, Silvan. At green, step on it._ "

I watch the countdown clock run towards zero, but when it hits, I hit the gas too late and I don't compensate for the inch of space until we've both swung around the first bend. Hermann gets the first turn, which means I may have to go on the defensive.

 _Damn._ I can't necessarily go on the offensive in my second turn. Maybe not with Crow's cards, anyways. Not unless I get the right hand.

Hermann draws to begin his turn. "I summon Hook the Hidden Knight in Attack Position! Then I set a card face down to end my turn!"

" _That's it_ ," Yusei's voice says. " _That same card, on the first turn_."

The running theory is that the crashes are all tied to _this_ monster. Hook the Hidden Knight. I've been watching footage of the Team Unicorn duel all week, listening to my friends argue about the significance of both Andore and Jean mysteriously crashing on the turn Hook the Hidden Knight activated its special effect.

It's this demonic looking creature with curved hooks for hands and beady red eyes. If there's a Physicalizer on this team, I don't think it's Hermann.

"My turn!" I draw and take a look at my hand. I've got Sirroco the Dawn, Gale the Whirlwind, Blackback, Defenders Intersect, Urgent Tuning, and Gravity Collapse in my hand. Sirroco has an effect that will allow me to summon it without using up my Normal Summon for the turn, similar to my Cyber Dragon. I'm going to try to attack, so I can see just what that Hook thing is capable of, but I'm also going to be careful. I can set the facedowns no matter what this turn brings.

"When monsters exist only on my opponent's field, I can summon up Blackwing - Sirroco the Dawn!" It's a monster with 2000 ATK; my duel screen tells me that Hook the Hidden Knight only has 1600. "Sirroco the Dawn, attack and destroy Hook the Hidden Knight!"

"Not so fast, there! I activate Hook the Hidden Knight's special effect!"

"Oh boy," I mutter.

" _Be prepared_ ," Crow pipes up.

"If a monster attacks Hook the Hidden Knight while it's in Attack Position, I can switch both monsters to Defense Position and deal you 800 points in damage!"

Both monsters retract into their defensive stances and turn dark blue. A gust of wind blows my duel runner back, and I brace myself. My Life Points are down to 3200, but that was a tell in and of itself.

I know what real damage feels like. And that was real.

Into my comm, Yusei shouts, " _Back wheel! Your right_!"

Before I even look back, I swerve left. That was _something_ that I felt––I don't know what, but it wasn't normal. Nothing changes, I don't feel any shift in the air or the ground or my duel runner itself. I'm safe, somehow.

" _Did you see that_!" Crow is shouting. " _Did you see that shit_?!"

"I'm driving, I didn't see anything!" I hiss. "I set four facedowns, turn end!"

"My turn!" Hermann draws. "I'm switching Hook the Hidden Knight into Attack Position! Next, I'm summoning Dark the Hidden Knight!"

More Hidden Knights?

"Because of its special effect, I can send Dark the Hidden Knight to attack you directly!"

The damage shows up on my duel screen before it even happens; I get taken down from 3200 LP to 2400. This one, at least, didn't deal real damage.

"Next, Hook the Hidden Knight, attack Blackwing - Sirocco the Dawn!"

The Hook has just enough ATK on Sirocco to take him out—I turn my eyes back behind me as _briefly_ as I can, and as soon as I see the ground begin to shimmer, I swerve. Whatever it is, maybe it happens every time it goes in to deal damage.

"I'll set a card and end my turn." It's barely noticeable, but Hermann sounds unhappy.

" _Whoops. Somebody's pissed that they can't touch you_ ," Crow retorts.

"I haven't seen it yet," I remark, "But I can feel it every time it pops up."

" _Just keep your eyes out. We need some real proof_ ," Yusei's voice says.

Right. Of course. Because _that'll_ be easy.

"It's my turn!" I call. I draw Blackwing - Etesian of Two Swords. That should be useful later on, because it allows me to deal effect damage after a monster of mine is destroyed. "I activate Blackback! I can use this card to resurrect Sirocco the Dawn in Attack Position! Then, due to its special effect, I can not only summon Blackwing - Gale the Whirlwind from my hand, but I can use it to halve the ATK of Hook the Hidden Knight until the End Phase! Gale the Whirlwind, attack and destroy Hook the Hidden Knight!"

"I activate the effect of Hook the Hidden Knight! When it's attacked, I can switch both monsters into Defense Position and deal you 800 points in damage!"

I'm down to 1600. This time, I don't have the time to swerve. The only thing I can do is shift my weight and Expel just a bit so my duel runner sails off of the ground and lands a few feet further ahead. It uproots energy in my stomach, energy I've been keeping since Crash Town, and my jaw starts to feel heavy from it.

I have to take a second to recover. "...that's fine, I've got another monster on my field!" I throw out my hand. "Sirocco the Dawn, destroy Hook the Hidden Knight!"

"By tributing my Dark the Hidden Knight, I can switch Hook the Hidden Knight into Attack Position!"

" _It's the special effect all over again_ ," Jack complains. " _Now you're at 800_."

"I could do without the commentary right now!"

" _Silvan, the hook!_ " Crow warns.

It happens so _fast_. I try to make another jump, but when I land, it's not far enough out of the way. The only place left to go is down. I Waste myself down, and suddenly I'm sliding sideways along the asphalt. I can feel bits of loose gravel digging at my suit. The hook in question reaches fully out of the ground and takes the shape of a hook-handed shadow. It expected me to jump again; it sails right over me and out into the open. The sunlight makes its body dissipate before it can take a swing at me.

There it is. It's out in the open. I'm out of the woods, for now. With all of the strength I can muster, even with gravity forcing me down, I kick myself upright, Wasting up and shouldering back against the track to get back up. I'm so, so _terrifyingly_ close to hitting the next turn that I have to bank sideways to slow down, drift right, and hit the gas again to continue down towards Hermann.

I didn't notice that the dome was almost silent until someone screams. The stands become an uproar. I think it's obvious that whatever just happened was super out of the ordinary. Not to mention the illegal Main Stage 2 attack.

" _Incredible move there by Levine! She's gonna have a nasty scuff on that duel runner, but it looks like she was expecting that backward attack from Hook the Hidden Knight! Folks, I have never seen this before!_ "

As soon as I'm balanced again, I discard a card from my hand. "If a Blackwing monster on my field battled this turn, I can discard Blackwing - Etesian of Two Swords to deal you damage equal to that monster's ATK!"

Hermann is at 2000, according to my duel screen.

"Now, I activate the trap, Urgent Tuning! This allows me to Synchro Summon during my Battle Phase!"

"I-I play Shadow Concealing Darkness!" Hermann's voice shakes as he tosses over a facedown. "This prevents any monsters in Defense Position from being destroyed in battle!"

That has a secondary effect. If I were to have have a Light attribute monster on my field, Shadow Concealing Darkness would be destroyed.

But I don't. I'll just have to keep chugging.

I throw my arm out for my Synchro Summon. This drama, this showmanship that Turbo Dueling comes with is… new. But exciting. "I tune Sirocco the Dawn with Gale the Whirlwind in order to Synchro Summon Black-Winged Dragon!"

Crow's Signer Dragon—hidden in the Blackbird for as many years as Pearson has been dead, I heard. I've seen it in action a handful of times during Crow's practices; an absolutely massive monster, beautiful and covered in thick black feathers. I can feel that pulse of warmth in my fingertips again. The roaring water in my ears might just be the crowd.

"Now, I activate Defenders Intersect! This card allows me to switch all monsters on the field into Attack Position by negating their effects!"

Black-Winged Dragon destroys Hook the Hidden Knight, the damage calculation takes Hermann down to 0 LP, but he plays his last face down. "I activate Revival Knight! This lets me resurrect Hook the Hidden Knight from the Grave!"

"No, I think not!" I call. My beginning hand, I suppose, turned out to be _loaded_. Maybe my bad habit of setting every Trap as it comes into my hand is finally coming in handy. "I trigger Gravity Collapse! By tributing a monster on my field, I can negate the activation of a Spell or Trap!"

White smoke pours out of Hermann's duel runner. As I ride past the pits, I hear screaming and cheering, but I'm too afraid of losing my focus to look. There are still two more members of Team Catastrophe to take care of, with or without that strange, _real_ card. And I'm out Black-Winged Dragon, until I can draw something to resurrect it.

The next contender, the one Bruno pointed out as Nicolas, comes out beside me on the track. "What a shame you survived our shadow card! It's a marvel such a little girl could be so resilient."

"You'd be surprised what I can weather!" What he said, though… what is a 'shadow card'?

Nicolas draws; the first turn is his. "I place a card face down and end my turn!"

Just placing a card? That's it? He's got five cards in his hand and I've got… what, one? I draw for my turn and make it two—the card I drew was Trap Unit, which will allow me to sacrifice Life Points down to 100 to negate effect damage. I'm sure it'll come in handy at some point, and there's not much I can do, since the other card in my hand is a Speed Spell. I set it down, but just as I end my turn, Nicolas flips his face down.

"I activate Doom Ray!"

 _Doom Ray_?

"Due to this card's effect, I can deal damage to both players equal to the number of cards they have in their hands times 800!"

4000 LP for him, and 800 for me. We're both out, just like that, but I remember the face down I threw before I tried to end my turn.

"I activate my facedown: Trap Unit! I can sacrifice my Life Points down to 100 in order to stop myself from taking effect damage this turn!"

An explosion rocks the track, and there's a buzzing in the air. Smoke pours over us, and my ears pop as a number of explosives batter Nicolas' duel runner. I know the feeling that comes with that, and immediately I know what a shadow card is—it's a card that deals real damage.

In the moment, I'm trying to figure out how to deal with the collateral damage, but a shield has extended over my runner because of my trap activation. I speed past Nicolas, still atop his crumbling duel runner. When I throw out my hand for him, he doesn't hesitate to take it. I don't think he understood the full power of the card he used. What 4000 points of real damage _really_ feels like.

The smoke begins to clear away to reveal the wreckage of Nicolas' duel runner, and by default, that means we've secured our second win. He can't transfer his Team's patch to Hans. This win means that we're out of the preliminaries and into the actual tournament.

I won a match. I… I dueled in a circuit and _I won_.

I leave Nicolas a little ways away from the pits and pull up to where Team 5D's is stationed. I'm pulling my helmet off and still trying to process the fact that I actually won a tournament Turbo Duel when Jack, Yusei, and Crow barrel into me.

"You did it!" Crow's shouting. "You're a fucking pro and you _did it_! C'mere, ya little prodigy!"

He and Jack start squashing kisses on both of my cheeks. Evan elbows through them to hug me, practically yanking me up off of the ground when he does.

"I'm so proud of you," he says into my hair. The word _proud_ bounces around in my mind for a while, this beaming, glowing happiness suddenly the only thing I can focus on. I get hugs from Bruno, too, and from the twins, who won't stop talking about how _cool_ I looked and how _awesome_ my slide was.

At some point, Yusei comes at me from behind and wrangles his arms around me. Startled laughter flutters out of me as he hoists me off of the ground for a second, then sets me back down. I turn in the circle of his arms so I can hug him for real.

He's smiling like someone turned a light on inside of him. There's some quiet, boyish joy in his voice when he says, "How do you feel?"

I say, "This is the best I've ever felt."

He almost seems like he can't contain himself when he says, "I could tell."

"Thank you for believing in me," I tell him.

"Always," is his response. "You're a natural."

Oh, I could _fly_ right now, I'm so happy. I almost don't notice the noise of the MC tapping a microphone, trying to get everyone's attention. Even Ushio, mid-arrest of Team Catastrophe, pauses.

" _Folks, we ask you to remain calm_!" The MC says. " _I have received word that scores of unknown duelists have infiltrated separate city-wide tracks and are in the process of attacking competing duelists! I repeat, please remain calm! The Security Maintenance Bureau is aware of the situation and is working to contain it, but we ask that you please exit the stadium immediately_!"

Evan is the first of us to respond; he whips around toward the audience, looking for Kiryu in the mass of people suddenly rushing for an exit. I reach to put a hand on him. "Go! Go look for him!"

"Rua! Ruka!" Evan shouts. "Come with me!"

Rua exclaims, "But what about—"

"Come _on_!"

From my duel runner, I can hear the sound of the interface suddenly switching modes. " _DUEL MODE ACTIVATED. BATTLE ROYALE ENGAGED._ "

"Battle Royale?" Yusei asks. "That's…"

"Free-for-all," I say. "Who changed the highway protocols?"

"I don't understand," Crow says.

"Battle Royale mode is a free-for-all mode," Yusei repeats. "It means that any duel in progress can be joined by anyone else _also_ engaged in Battle Royale mode. I've never seen it active before."

" _Yusei_!"

A familiar white-clad figure ekes to a stop next to us, riding a duel runner decorated with candy-colored flames.

"Sherry." Yusei sidles up to her duel runner; another massive blue runner pulls up next to her, its rider tall and built like a wrestler.

"Impressive riding, _jolie_." Sherry nods at me. Heat floods my cheeks; I've read enough to know that one. "We have another problem, however. One worse than illegal shadow cards."

"Tell me what to do," Yusei says.

"The duelists crowding the highway," Sherry says, "are Riding Roids."

Yusei looks visibly taken aback. I think I see his face lose some of its color before he recovers himself and says, "How? Where did they come from?"

"No clue. But there are over fifty of them. They're engaging with tournament duelists through Battle Royale."

I see Yusei still floundering, trapped in those memories of the Ghost, and I step forward. "How can we help?"

Sherry turns her brilliant green eyes on me. "We have to take the bots out. Keep them from crashing any of the contenders."

"Do you play hero every day?"

She gives a wry smile. "Robots like these run on a similar circuit. If we start to destroy them, their creator may show their face."

"Great. Let's do it."

"I'll come, too." Jack claps his hand on Yusei's shoulder. Now we're both here bolstering him. Yusei seems to realize we're on both sides of him and almost visibly relaxes. "I came for a fight today."

"I…" Crow sounds disgruntled. "I'll go with Evan and the twins."

"You keep everybody out of trouble," Jack tells him. "Get somewhere safe."

I disengage his deck from my wrist dealer. "Here. Just in case."

He accepts it, looks at it for a moment, and says, "Yeah, I guess I can stand and duel on the off-chance I need to."

"Thank you for letting me use it."

"You're welcome. Thanks for taking us to the next fight."

"Anything to see you on the track again."

He smiles ruefully, says, "Be careful," and bolts for the fast-emptying stands.

Yusei, still pallid but more inclined to speaking, says, "Okay, then. What's the plan?"

The man on the runner next to Sherry says, "There are fifty two Riding Roids loose in the city. Three other circuit duels were set to begin about fifteen minutes ago, five to seven minutes before the first Riding Roid was spotted."

"How do you know all that?" Jack retorts.

"Bureau scanners," the man replies. "They don't do a wonderful job of keeping their frequencies secure."

"...okay, carry on, then."

"Only three roads have been blocked off this morning for the WRGP," the man says. "That's not counting every other highway in the city that could hold commuting citizens in cars and duel runners—the latter of which will be forced into Battle Royale and could prove dangerous to their surroundings, should they lose."

"In Battle Royale, anyone can attack anyone," Sherry adds. "And we know from past experience that anyone who loses to a Riding Roid ends up painted on the road. So our goal is to insert ourselves into their duels and crash them before they can crash anyone else."

"Seems simple enough," I say. "Fifty two, you said? If we all take on around ten, that's quick work."

"You're not suggesting we all go _alone_ ," Yusei remarks.

"Though one on ten sounds like a welcome challenge," Sherry says, "I'd like to agree with Yusei. We should travel in numbers. We stand a better chance together than apart, and it is likely that the Bureau will have sent their own agents to fight."

"It was just a suggestion," I say. "So. Who's going with who?"

"I go with Ms. LeBlanc everywhere," the man on the other duel runner says.

Jack, Yusei, and I exchange looks.

Sherry says, "Yusei, I am going after whoever is behind this once the path is clear. I could use your skills."

"...all right," he says.

Jack claps a hand on my shoulder. "All right. It's you and me, then, Silvan. Betcha I can rack up a bigger kill count."

"Don't get your hopes up," I retort, fishing my Turbo Duel deck out of one of the pouches strapped to my belt. "I'm on a winning streak today."

"We'll keep in touch," Yusei remarks. He goes to grab his helmet off of the top of one of the computers in the pit section. "Let each other know when we take one out."

"I can keep count," I say.

"Perfect."

Sherry flips her helmet visor down. "Let's do some damage, then, shall we?"

I slip my deck into my wrist dealer and mount my duel runner; Yusei and Jack come around from the pit garage in moments, both ready—certainly not eager, in Yusei's case—to ride into trouble.

There's… this capability in me right now. This rush of belonging. I had the ability to win in a tournament. I must have the ability to beat a few robots, too.

The five of us bolt out. One of the track extension doors in the western side of the stadium has opened, possibly via whoever sent out the Roids. Once we're out of the Memorial Circuit and the track begins to split, Yusei, Sherry, and Sherry's friend split left. Jack and I go right. Both stretches of track split further and further away from each other, until Jack and I are suddenly driving south and I can see five duel runners up ahead of us.

Four Roids—one duelist. The lone duelist is on the bigger side, wearing a distinctly feline-shaped helmet and a fur-lined jacket. My duel screen updates the closer we get: the competing duelist is sporting two face downs, against two Ally of Justice Nullifiers and three Ally of Justice Garadholgs. The duelist is at 2500 LP; the Roids, all in order, have 2400, 4000, 4000, and 4000.

We're already engaged in battle, thanks to Battle Royale. I activate my deck's shuffle and draw five cards: Machina Gearframe, Yellow Gadget, Speed Spell - Angel Baton, Cyber Summon Blaster, and Nostalgia Lock. My first draw is Time Machine.

I take the first shot.

"I start by placing a facedown—" Cyber Summon Blaster, "—and then I summon Machina Gearframe in Attack Position! Due to its special ability, I can add one Machine-type monster to my hand from my deck!"

Machina Fortress flicks out of my deck, and my cards reshuffle.

"By discarding Machine-type monsters in my hand whose levels equal or exceed seven, I can summon Machina Fortress in Attack Position!"

Discarding Fortress and Yellow Gadget did it just fine—now I've got two monsters in play. Two monsters I can take out.

"Machina Gearframe—"

"I-I activate a Trap!" The lone duelist, voice shaky, flips one of their cards. "Unjustified Kamikaze Attack! This Battle Phase, you have to attack twice!"

Good. Now that there's more of us here to fight the Roids, the cornered duelists can fight back, too.

I continue my attack; Gearframe takes out both Ally of Justice Nullifiers. With Fortress, I take out one of the Roids, and I cut the LP of another down to 1500.

"I place a card face down and end my turn!"

Now it's Jack's turn; three more Roids, two at 4000 and one at 1500.

"When my opponent controls monsters and I control none, I can Special Summon Big Piece Golem! Next, by sending a monster in my hand to the Grave, I can summon Power Giant in Attack Position!"

He's swarming—probably shaping up to attack with smaller monsters before summoning Red Demons.

"Then, I'll summon Dark Resonator in Attack Position!"

A Synchro Summon with one monster left over, almost certainly. We won't take two turns to take these four out, I don't think, unless Jack has something in those last two cards in his hand.

"Big Piece Golem, Power Giant, destroy those two Ally of Justice Garadholgs! Dark Resonator, attack directly!"

So we have a 2100, a 3500, and a 1500. A near clear field, save for one more Garadholg.

"Now, I'll tune Big Piece Golem together with Dark Resonator to Synchro Summon my almighty Red Demons Dragon!" He throws a face down, and then it's someone else's turn. Whose, we'll have to find out.

It's the other duelist that claims their turn. "I activate the Speed Spell - Half Seize! If I have three or more Speed Counters, I can halve the ATK of a monster on my opponent's field and gain it as LP!"

There's half of Garadholg's ATK—800 points—for this duelist, now up to 3300 LP.

"Then, by removing an Earth attribute monster in my Grave, I can Special Summon Gigantes in Attack Position! Attack Ally of Justice Gardholg!"

Three Roids, still. 2100, 3200, and 1500, but an empty field.

"Now I end my turn!"

 _Now_ we just have to hope that it's not impossible to break these three next time the turn order resets.

"I summon Ally of Justice Cyclone Creator in Attack Position! And I end my turn!"

That's the first one, down. And Cyclone Creator is a Tuner.

"I Summon Ally of Justice Rudra in Attack Position! And I end my turn!"

Why didn't it Synchro? It would've had a Level 8.

"When I control no monsters, I can Special Summon Ally of Justice Tractor from my hand!"

"I activate my face down, Cyber Summon Blaster!" I say. "Any time a Machine-type monster is Special Summoned, you take 300 points in damage for each one!"

That's the 3200 Roid—now down to 2900.

"Next, I summon Ally Salvo! And I tune together Ally of Justice Cyclone Creator with Ally of Justice Rudra and Ally of Justice Tractor to Synchro Summon Ally of Justice Field Marshall!"

That's 2900 ATK—and the other duelist is exposed.

"I activate my Trap!" Jack chimes. "Staunch Defender! Now, all your monsters have to attack and they have to target my Red Demons Dragon!"

 _Nice._ This could end fast, after all.

The aftermath of forcing both Ally Salvo and Field Marshall to attack Red Demons is 2900 LP; just enough to take out one more of the Roids. We swerve past its duel runner as it tumbles to the asphalt.

The second, though, reactivates Ally Salvo. "When Ally Salvo is destroyed in battle, I can choose two cards on the field to destroy as well! I choose Red Demons Dragon and Machina Fortress!"

"I activate my second face down, Time Machine!" I say. "When a monster is destroyed, I can return it to the field in the same position it was when it was destroyed! Come on back, Red Demons!"

Jack throws a thumbs-up my way.

The Roid's turn is over. I claim mine next.

My draw is Machina Sniper.

"I summon Machina Sniper! Sniper, Gearframe, attack directly!"

We swerve past another wrecked Roid, and I set my card and end my turn; Red Demons sends the last Roid spiraling, in pieces, into the barrier. We follow this lone duelist until they can leave the highway.

And Jack and I keep cutting through them. Like butter. He compensates for my bad calls and slip ups more than once, and I feel rotten for everything I try that gets turned back around, but he doesn't mention it. He just keeps being there, keeps being my safety, and I do my best to be his when he needs it. The duelists we encounter fight back with us until their Life Points dip dangerously low—and then we take the heat while they flee the scene.

They keep coming, again and again, more every time. We pass our quota of ten Roids each, and still they keep coming.

We've taken out near thirty, somewhere on the road beyond Daimon, when suddenly the streets empty. Jack and I eke to a stop, surveying the broken duel runners we've left in the distance. Watching the storm that's beginning to gather over Neo Domino, the clouds twirling downward like fingers from gods.

"Is it over?" I breathe. "Are we done?"

Jack doesn't answer. I can feel static biting in the air. It's been a long time since I've smelled ozone this strong.

In the distance, in the city, the clouds keep swirling down and down and down. I've only seen tornadoes in books. In movies. The wind threatens to rip my helmet from my head.

Jack says, "Maybe it's time for us to try and be useful somewhere else."

By the time we reach the center of the city again, the tornado has already touched down. It's ripped quite a few buildings out of the way, and we can't get too close to it for fear that we'll get sucked into it, too. We stand on an overpass and watch it coil through the streets, hoping no one is in its path.

After a few minutes, Jack puts his hand on my shoulder and squeezes. "The hospital."

It takes me a second to understand what he means—the path the twister is taking.

I barely even hear myself say "I can do something, I have to do something," high on this feeling of victory. Of contribution. Jack is yelling for me, screaming at me to come to my senses, as I throw my helmet off and go spiraling down off of the edge of the overpass.

 _What the fuck am I doing, what the fuck am I doing?_ I can still feel that pressure from Crash Town rattling around in my jaw, the force of my jump off of the overpass clanging against the insides of my knees. But if anyone could stop something like this, to try to at least _somehow_ defy nature, it has to be me. Right?

The wind threatens to tear me from the ground, and in order to keep running, I have to let it pass through me quick—quick enough that I'm getting lightheaded.

Internalize, Expel, Internalize, Expel. When I get as close as I can to the base of the twister, I find that my brother is here, and he had this idea first.

And he's fighting a losing battle.

He's standing in the eye, both arms outstretched, blood pouring down his chin.

Is this what I look like, when I overexert? I never thought Evan could. I've always thought he was invincible.

When I dive for him, the wind rips through me. It churns in my body for only an instant, dredging up splashes of color and cold and pain somewhere behind my eyes, somewhere deep in my bones. The twister lifts me upward, out of myself, and lightning crackles out of my fingers as I make more and more room for the wind to pass through me.

Then I hit solid ground again.

Evan tumbles, slack, to the street. My wind-ripped hair settles by my ears. I feel so light that it's like I shouldn't have any limbs at all.

My brother is still bleeding from his nose and his mouth, but he's breathing. I can't feel my fingers, but I hold onto him still, like having him here can put the life I gave to the storm back into me.

I sit there and breathe. I sit there and _be_.

And as I coil my brother closer to me, trying to remember how to speak or breathe or hear or disentangle myself from becoming a force of nature, I think that today has made me something more than just me.

This is what it's like to feel powerful. This is the first time I've ever felt so far away from C.

* * *

 **A/N: Sorry for the unintentional hiatus, hopefully we're good for a while now!**


	51. Different Strokes

The last time I had to say goodbye to a friend was when I left Arcadia—I've been thinking a lot lately about Seria and Kawasaki, about that shocking kind of loss leaving them behind made me feel. I'm not used to goodbyes being this casual; being as cut-and-dry as me seeing Andore off at the airport.

"I'll be back eventually." He flashes a smile. "This city will have another tournament."

"I'm sorry you have to leave like this," I say. "They should've given you another shot."

"Even if it gives us another opportunity to beat you?"

"Oh, don't get your hopes up."

He laughs. "It's not a terrible loss. We had fun. Got some more exposure outside of our usual circuit. And I met you."

I shift nervously.

"Oh, don't look so perturbed." He steps in toward me a little and takes my hand. "You're quite a woman, Silvan. And it's become pretty obvious that everyone you touch might just be in love with you, too."

"Please don't," I say.

"You were so alive out there," he says. "Against Catastrophe? I swear you're a born Turbo Duelist. And your team adores you. I wish you could have seen how ecstatic you all looked. The way you were smiling."

I wring my hands. "I don't understand what you're trying to tell me."

"I'd like to stay in touch with you, if that's okay," Andore continues. "I'll be quite happy if you give me a chance to treat you right, but I'm not sure you will. You have plenty of happiness here, plenty of capacity for love like you deserve, and not much space for me."

"I'd—I would like to keep you as my friend, Andore."

"I'm grateful for that. And I wish you luck in the rest of the tournament. I'll be rooting for you from home."

"Thank you."

He gives me a hug, pulls his hat down a little, then goes to brave the crowd of people hoping to catch him and his teammates in the terminal. I'm as sad as I am baffled; that was… bittersweet. I really don't know how to feel. I'm not sure what to think about what he said about me and my friends. Capacity for love 'like I deserve'. I don't know. Don't know how to feel. There's a lot I didn't tell Andore about myself. There's a lot I'm starting to feel that I don't know how to classify.

I brave the traffic on the way back from the airport to get back to Poppo Time; it's Sunday and I'm meeting Aki and Carly at the cafe for the first time since Aki got hurt.

She woke up for the first time during the Riding Roid siege, is what I'm told. Her mark brought her back to consciousness and she had to be evacuated from the east wing because of the storm. There's a lot we don't know about that day, and the Riding Roids. Security is looking into it and into the rider responsible for the Roids that Yusei took on—somebody Yusei said called himself Placido.

Then there's Dark Glass—the person who cornered Yusei at the WRGP party—who reappeared to help with the Roids. Apparently Yusei succeeded at that new summon-type Dark Glass introduced: Yusei said it's called Accel Synchro.

He's… nervous. Twitchy, after all that happened. But he's not as bad as he was the first time he faced the Ghost. I think finally succeeding at that Synchro helped him a lot. Now, at least, he has a way to fight back that he knows will work.

And I'm… not really myself. Since seeing my brother overexert and letting the power of that storm course through me, I've felt different. Not quite new, but… not quite the same.

Aki is at the cafe when I arrive. Carly, nowhere to be seen, is probably still trapped at work.

"Hi," I say, sliding into my usual chair at our usual table. Aki has her hair loosely pulled back, and I can just barely see the bandage up on her forehead. She's wearing a pretty red t-shirt dress underneath a jacket—comfortable above all else today.

She blinks a few times. "I wasn't sure you'd come."

"Why wouldn't I?"

"I just… thought… you might still be mad."

"...about that?" I ask. "I mean. You said you were still thinking about it. I haven't been mad, just kind of miffed. And I did say that I wasn't not your friend because of it."

"I… I have been thinking a lot about it," Aki stammers. "I've been thinking it's probably a good idea to take your advice."

"Really?"

"...yeah." She picks at her nails. "I watched your duel."

"You did?" I say.

"Yeah. I've watched it a few times now, actually. It's been on almost all the sports recap channels. And my mom taped it."

"Oh."

"You looked so… alive," she says. "Different than I've ever seen. So focused and professional, and… and when it was all over, the way everyone rushed to you was… something I've never seen."

"I just did it out of obligation, Aki. You were hurt and so was Crow—somebody had to make Team Catastrophe pay for that."

"Yes, but you were good at it. Like you were a born competitor."

"That doesn't mean anything, though. I'm not a competitor, I'm a mechanic."

"You could be both," she says. "And when I watched that duel, I… I am a duelist, Silvan, you and I know that. But that's not my dream. I think I can amount to something different. Something that really fills me up inside."

"You're not… you're so good at everything, Aki. You're incredibly intelligent and you're passionate, I've never seen you look anything less than a 9—"

"But that will never be me," she says. "A riding duelist. That's not what I'm cut out for. I can get better, sure, just like I got better at standing duels in Arcadia. But I'm realizing that it's not what I want."

"...what do you want?"

"I'm… figuring it out." She shakes her head. "Yusei and I aren't cut out to be together. I think you were right about that. I was so angry when you told me that, I think I missed your point."

"Well… yeah…"

"I guess I thought he was more emotional than you said he was, but… then I realized he was only ever really emotional if you were there to drag him back."

"I'm not sure what you mean," I say.

"You're the one who's always there when he panics. When he gets angry. You're the only one that can calm him down. If… if you could see the way he looked at you, after that race, Silvan—"

"I… don't know what you're trying to tell me."

"...me neither, really. My point is that I can't really know someone that won't let me see what they're suppressing. And I can't love someone I don't really know. Not like that, anyways."

I look for what I'm going to say. "I'm sorry, Aki."

"I'm sorry, too. I'm sorry it took me an injury to think it all over."

"I'm sorry if I was so harsh. I didn't mean to hurt you."

"I know you didn't. I didn't mean to ice you out."

"I know you didn't mean for that, either." She reaches for me across the table. "I really am proud of you for that. And about the Riding Roids, I heard about that too."

"I… didn't do as much as I should have," I say.

"You helped," she replies. "That's more than enough. You used to just think about the prospect of helping. Taking action is big."

"But I could have done more."

She reaches to grab my hand. "Silvan… I saw you. When the tornado hit."

I don't say anything.

"You put it out like a fire. And not even a big one. One second it was there, the next, it was gone."

"...I…"

"How are you feeling? Are you okay?" Her eyebrows pull together. "You haven't shown any sign of being hurt."

"That's the thing," I murmur. "I… I feel fine. I feel better, even, but not quite—not quite like myself."

"I've never felt power like that," Aki says. "Especially not from you. I mean, I've always known you were capable of strength, but that was a level of it that I never anticipated."

"I'm—I'm not sure what I'm supposed to say."

"You could try to tell me why." She pauses. "Maybe. If you think you can."

"Why?" I echo.

"What changed? It was like… like something opened in you. A door you've always kept closed." She visibly shifts in her seat. "Even now, you feel different. I can feel that you're different."

"I just…" I wring my hands. "I knew I could help. Or, at least, if anyone could try, I could."

Her tone of voice falls flat. "You didn't once think that it could have killed you?"

"I mean. No," I admit. "That power, that—that part of me has never made me feel unsafe. I used to be afraid of it, but now it's just… it's kept me alive this long. It's gotten me through so much."

"...you can't keep depending on it and hope it'll hold up, Silvan. That's going to get dangerous quicker than you think."

"I know I shouldn't," I say, "but is it wrong that it feels so permanent? Like the only thing that's ever been there to keep me going? I never would have survived Divine without it. The Dark Signers. I've had close calls since then that absolutely should have killed me."

"I just want you to be more careful," Aki says. "My powers were what put me in the hospital."

"You—Aki, you can't blame what happened with Team Catastrophe on your powers—"

"They failed me," she interjects. "I tried to use them, to catch myself, but they failed me."

"...oh."

She retracts her hand from mine. "Even now, I can't feel anything. I've tried. When I reach, nothing talks back. None of my cards will Physicalize, or anything."

"You don't feel any different to me," I murmur.

"But I am different. We're both different."

I fold my hands. "I guess so."

"...how is Evan?"

"Fine," I say. If she saw me, then, she must've seen him too. I should be chastising her for standing too close to windows during a twister. "He's still a little disoriented. It's affecting him way more than episodes like that affect me."

"I can imagine why," Aki answers. "Wasting is as physical as it is mental, but your other gifts… they're all physical. You let energy in and out of you whenever you feel like it. I can't imagine what it was like to put all of that through yourself."

I don't answer at first, mostly because I don't know how to put it into words.

"I feel like it was the right thing to do. The right risk to take," I say at last. "Otherwise, would either of us still be sitting here?"

She shifts uncomfortably.

"I don't know," I mutter. "Guess it doesn't matter."

"It—It does matter."

"I don't know," I repeat. We sit there in silence for a moment, and I can see her expression grow heavy, as if with the words she's thinking about saying.

Suddenly, there's—Crow, of all people, standing next to our table. His jacket's draped casually over his shoulders, masking most of his sling.

"Uh, hey you guys," Crow says. "Hi."

"...hi," I say. "What's up?"

"I just, ah…" He chews on his lip. "Can we talk?" He points between himself and Aki. "You and I?"

"Carly should be coming soon," I say, bewildered as to why he's here.

He blinks at me. "Carly's hanging out with Jack."

"Oh." I wiggle my chair out and stand. "I guess I'll… see you, then, Aki."

Crow mouths 'thank you' to me as I start away from the table. Gods know what he needs a private conversation with her for; I just hope it's nothing bad. Still, I wish Carly had texted us or something.

Odd as it was, Crow was kind of a welcome reprieve. I don't know what that conversation was, or what it could have devolved into. I'm still not quite sure of what Aki wanted to tell me. I'm still much more worried about what I did, about that tornado, than relieved.

I left the door to the apartment unlocked, and it still is, when I get back inside. Evan is on the couch, leaning over the coffee table, Kiryu's feet propped up on his lap.

"What are you working on?" I ask. I don't recognize the sketch out in front of him.

"I'm bored so I'm thinking about building that tattoo machine we talked about a bit ago."

"Oh?" I ask, interested suddenly. I've been thinking of getting another tattoo, maybe when I turn twenty and my license actually lists me as twenty. At this point, I don't know if Inoue would still recognize me.

"As long as Silvan is the one operating it," Kiryu retorts.

Evan throws him an annoyed, but soft, look. "Also, Sil, would you mind cleaning up my runner blueprint? Just whenever you have time."

"I have time right now," I say. "Where is it?"

"I can get it." Evan moves Kiryu's legs off of his lap and leans to kiss him quickly as he stands up. Then he goes to rifle through the umbrella stand by the loft stairwell that we've taken to using for blueprints.

Kiryu picks Evan's cell phone up off of the coffee table and, I think, checks the time. "Babe, while you're up, did you take your pills?"

Evan groans, stops in his tracks, then goes and whacks open one of the kitchen cabinets; he retrieves a prescription bottle off of a shelf, presumably in answer. "I super hate this."

"Is… is there a time you were told to stop taking them?" I ask, remembering a week ago when I had to half-drag my near-dead brother into the hospital for help.

"Whenever I finish the bottle, I guess." He shakes a couple tablets into his hand and throws them back—dry, for some ungodly reason. He smiles sourly and says, "I dunno, is anemia supposed to go away?"

"That's… a little different than losing blood," I say.

"I mean, it helps, I guess," Kiryu adds. "I think you've just always been anemic. And they happened to have figured it out now."

I shoot Evan a look.

"What?" He says. He's back to rifling for his blueprint. "One doctor in Satellite. Also, I hate them."

"Explains why your info on autonomy is so lacking," Kiryu mutters.

"Thanks, babe," Evan retorts, picking a roll of paper out of the stand.

"You've already made the blood you lost back a few times over," I cut in. "But if it happens again, it'll be worse because of the anemia. You can keep getting iron supplements after the prescription runs out, just over the counter. It's good to just take them anyways."

"I'm not going to do that again, though—"

"You're damn right you're not," Kiryu says. "And if Silvan doesn't restock the medicine cabinet, I will."

Evan just kind of sighs, like he's not going to try to argue anymore. He weighs the blueprint in his hands.

It's quiet for a second, until he says, "How'd you do it?"

It takes me a moment to figure out that he's talking to me. "...do what?"

"The twister." He flexes his fingers. "It was… so much. I've never even tried to channel that much energy before."

"I… I had to let some things out in order for it to pass through," I admit.

He looks at me, bewildered for a moment, then practically whispers, "Where's your threshold?"

"...I don't know."

His expression changes from confused to alarmed to—something almost curious. "How much do you have right now?"

"I can't really ever be sure."

He crosses around the couch and holds his hand out for me, and when I set my hand in his, I can already feel him reaching out. Searching for something in me to absorb.

I don't know what he finds first, but when he does come across something in me, that coil of energy from him retracts, curling uncomfortably back into itself like a snake.

He swears. Takes back his hand. "...how do you keep all of that in you and—and not feel it?"

"I mean, I do feel it," I tell him. "It rattles around in me all the time. Like I'm full of rocks. I've just—I've learned not to focus on it."

"You do… realize what you're capable of, at this point, don't you?"

"I'm not sure what you're trying to say."

"Everything I absorb, everything I've ever absorbed," he says, "is within human means. Been a human creation, usually. Like heat or cold, or some smallish amount of force. I think the most I've ever Internalized was from a fall that might've broken a bone otherwise."

I swallow. "So why did you walk into that twister, if you knew you didn't have the capacity?"

"I didn't know where you were. If anyone could've done something, it might've been me." He pauses, like he's trying to search for the words. "I don't know. I had to try. Everyone else was holed up in that hospital. Crow and the kids and Kiryu and everyone who actually needed to stay there."

"You were willing to die so easily?"

"So were you."

"No, it's not—it's not the same."

"Isn't it?"

"No, it's not, because—" I swallow. "Because I'm capable. And something in me knew that. I didn't have anything to live for before this year, and I've survived much worse so…"

"So what?"

"I don't know." I shake my head. "...you know what? I don't want to do this right now." I reach to take the blueprint from him, and meet no resistance.

On my way toward the door Evan stammers, "Wh-Where are you going?"

"On a walk," I say. "I'm done being lectured about this today."

I let the door swing shut behind me. Maybe I'll just walk to the library from here. The blueprint will keep me busy. And the library's quiet. Nobody will bother me there. I hope.

From my back pocket, my phone buzzes.

 **Yusei Fudo** : _hey why do you look so upset_

This odd sense of relief washes over me. Like _oh, someone who might let me catch a break_.

 **Silvan Levin** e: _wtf_

 **Yusei Fudo** : _oh sorry_

 **Yusei Fudo** : _jack bruno carly & i are watching crow & aki out the loft window_

 **Yusei Fudo** : _i realize that sounded really strange_

 **Yusei Fudo** : _my b_

I wipe my phone screen off on my jeans and type ' _can i come ovr_ '.

 **Yusei Fudo** : _of course_

 **Yusei Fudo** : _need to chat?_

 **Silvan Levine** : _idk i might jus need 2 yell in ur gen direction for a bit_

 **Silvan Levine** : _its been A Day_

 **Yusei Fudo** : _yippee_

I slip my phone back into my back pocket and trudge to the guys' front door, which is conveniently already unlocked. I've unfurled myself on the couch, blueprint under the coffee table, by the time Yusei comes down from the loft.

He rests his chin on the arm by my head. "And how are we feeling today?"

I fold my hands neatly on my stomach. "Well, doc, it all started when I was born."

"Very funny." He sits cross-legged on the floor next to the couch. "What's up?"

"I wanna go to sleep for the rest of my life."

"That's about how I feel on a daily basis."

I pause before continuing. "Also, why the hell is Carly with Jack upstairs? Why didn't she text me or Aki that she was bailing?"

"Oh, ah..." Yusei runs a hand through his hair. "They're, uh. Playing matchmaker."

It takes me a second for that one. " _Oh_."

"Yep."

"...I mean, they'd make a _super_ attractive couple."

"That's what I said. But, also. Is Aki into Crow?"

"Ooh, that's absolutely out of my ballpark," I say. "Is Crow into Aki?"

"Not gonna lie, I thought that was pretty obvious."

" _Not gonna lie_ , I have other things to worry about."

"Fair enough!" He shrugs. "Guess we'll find out what happens next."

"Guess so."

He pauses. I don't realize he's waiting for me to speak until he says, "So, anyways. You?"

"...I've had two separate people today chastise me about the tornado. Sorry I saved your lives, I _guess_."

He throws me an almost disappointed look.

"...sorry," I mumble. "Evan would have killed himself if I hadn't shown. I think Aki might be under the impression that I was trying to."

"Trying to off yourself?"

"I guess. But I was— _aagh_."

"I know you were… helping. In the no-warning, scary way that you do," he says. "I think they're allowed to be worried about you. They don't know your limits."

" _I_ don't know my limits." I pause. "Is that why you don't seem worried?"

"My job is to worry about you, Silvan."

"Yeah yeah, but—"

He holds up his hand to cut back in. "What happened in Crash Town doesn't mean I don't worry about your limits. Half the time, I'm scared to death your body's just going to give up holding everything in. But you were just trying to help."

"Really? So you can't be mad with me because I played hero like you, then?"

"Do you want me to be angry with you?"

"No!"

"So what's the problem?" Yusei reaches to put his hand on my arm. "You trust me to do stupid things all the time. Like—Like going out to duel evil robots that give me nightmares or go on an impromptu road trip to talk my ex's ex out of his grave. But most of the time it's because, if I don't do it, who else will?"

"Is that really it? That's the way you rationalize it?"

"Isn't that the way you rationalized it, in the moment?" He asks. "That's how I get myself to do stupid scary things all the time."

"I dunno," I mumble.

"Silvan, is there something else? Some other reason this is bothering you?"

"I…" I fiddle with my hands. "I have never willingly succumbed to that much power before."

His hand slips up to rest gently on my shoulder. "It's okay to be afraid of that."

"No, that's… it felt good. I felt powerful, Yusei. For once, I felt in control. I decided to try and do something, to help, and I did, and the way I felt breathing that twister in and breathing it back out was the best I think I've ever felt."

He opens and closes his mouth, as if at a loss. "...I'm sorry, do you… do you feel bad for finally feeling in control?"

"I don't know."

He sighs. "Silvan… it's not bad to like the feeling of being in control. Especially after what you've been through. It's freeing to finally be able to say that there aren't any strings on you."

"But isn't this the way Divine wanted me? Power hungry?"

"You're not power hungry," he remarks. "There's a huge difference between agency and egoism. And Divine isn't in your life anymore."

"He's about to be again."

"Not for any longer than a few hours. You're putting him away. Trying to put him in the ground, actually. That's the furthest away from you he could be."

"It feels so wrong to say I could ever be away from him," I confess. "I'm still nowhere near who I'd like to be. Everything I do is still impacted by him, and this… he wanted me to be powerful. That was his intention. But somehow this feels like it could be on my terms. That I could be powerful and use it for good."

"Exactly. That's agency, not hunger." He squeezes my shoulder. "It's okay to want that for yourself, Silvan. More importantly, it's okay to be afraid. That means you're still growing."

"But I don't—want to be afraid, Yusei."

"Nobody wants to be afraid. But you're allowed to be. Okay?"

"...okay."

He sighs. Pats my shoulder again. I can hear paper as he, presumably, finds Evan's blueprint. "What's this?"

"Blueprint. Evan asked me to clean it up."

He unfurls it as I slide down, off the couch, onto the floor beside him. "Why's he building another duel runner?"

"It's for Kiryu."

"Ah. Can I help you touch it up?"

"Sure," I tell him. "I'd like the help." I spread the paper out on the table, attempting to flatten it as much as I can. I have to bend the paper in a couple of places to get it out of its roll-shape.

"How are you?" I ask. "How's the... everything?"

"I'm okay," he says. "I'm better than I've been."

"Really?"

"Yeah. After all that happened... well, I finally have some agency of my own. I can finally _do_ something. That, at the very least, has given me some peace of mind."

"Do you think it's over?" I ask. "The Roids? The IRL duel damage?"

"I don't know," he confesses. "I'll admit, that duelist in charge of the Roids, Placido, read like a pretty bad guy. Like _the_ bad guy. But I have a sinking feeling that there's going to be more to this story."

"You're ready now, though," I say. "Right?"

"Well, I think that's my secret," he sighs. "I'm never really ready for anything except to act. Maybe that's part of the fear. That I don't know at all what to expect."

"And yet you keep playing the hero," I retort.

"Because if I don't do it," Yusei says, "who else will?"

I sigh out through my nose. "Crow. Jack. Aki. Hell, _Ruka_."

He shrugs. "What about you?"

"Of course."

"Just knowing I don't have to shoulder it alone, then, is a comfort."

I fix my eyes on Evan's blueprint. "You really don't _have_ to shoulder anything alone."

"Neither do you."

I can feel Yusei watching me—I swear I can almost hear him thinking.

"Silvan," he says softly, suddenly. I look towards him, at those gentle, stormy eyes. "We'll be with you the whole time. You know that."

Yeah. There's that dread. I should have been able to talk more to Aki about it. Evan, too. I'm trying not to feel like I fucked that up—that support, the necessity of it—by making them worry about me.

"Yes," I murmur. This is my reflex answer, only because I've been told too many times that all my friends will be there watching. That I'll have to make myself completely vulnerable again for a gallery of strangers and the people I care about the most. "I know."

"What I really want you to know," he says slowly, "is that, up there, you are still Silvan. Divine can't take that away from you. Not again. You have been, and you always will be Silvan Levine."

I swallow this… choked up feeling that's crept up into my throat.

"Divine did not tell you to do all that you've done for us. He didn't ask you to break our fall in Crash Town. He might've told you to leave that twister alone. Your actions—your very existence, I think, are rebellions against all that he tried to do and they prove that you are still you. They prove that you're stronger than him."

I swallow again. "What if that's not enough?"

"Just because you don't feel like enough doesn't mean you aren't," he murmurs.

I put my head in his neck, where he can't see my face, he puts his hand on my head, and we stay like that for a very long time.

I breathe him in and wish I could Internalize this feeling—this sense of safety I've felt almost since the day we met—for all the stormy days to come.


	52. Shrinking

Aki and I dress our best for the court date.

She looks like a businesswoman in her flouncy pink blouse, pencil skirt, and heels. I feel much less professional, especially in trousers and a blouse that shows all of my tattoos, but Aki and I agreed last night that I should show my stabilizer. Whoever is in that courtroom should know that we're psychic—after all, they're supposed to know what we've been through after today.

The difficulty, for me at least, is driving all the way to the courthouse in heels; I've never climbed on a duel runner wearing heels any higher or thicker than a couple inches, and the heels that Aki lent me are twice as high and pencil thin. I feel like I'm going to panic at some point during the ride, especially with the twins on the back of my runner. Crow, who somehow managed to get his cast into a collared shirt sleeve, rides with Aki. Evan totes Kiryu, and Yusei and Jack take up the rear. Aki's parents, I think, are supposed to be following us in their car.

When we arrive, we park in a line next to each other in the parking lot behind the big stone court building. The twins are in their Sunday best, and the guys are all pretty well dressed, better dressed than I've ever seen them, actually. Jack's in grey trousers and a white collared shirt, Yusei's in jeans and a pretty navy blazer, and Kiryu's in a nice straight dress shirt and tan pants. Even Crow, who I didn't know owned anything considered formal, looks more professional than my brother—he's wearing a brown blazer over his shoulders, while the most Evan could produce were slacks and a rumpled dress shirt.

A part of me is really glad they came, though.

"Nervous?" Aki asks, looping her arm through mine.

"Not really," I say. "Not yet. I feel like it'll set in when we actually get in there."

"Hope you're not nervous enough to _speak_ ," Evan says.

"Aki! Silvan! Hey, you guys!"

We turn together and Carly comes jogging toward us in heels almost as high as mine, toting her camera around her neck and her knapsack over her shoulder.

"How are you running in those shoes?" I ask.

"Practice," she states nonchalantly; Jack holds his hand out for her, and when she takes it, he stoops down to kiss her hello. "I didn't know you guys were coming."

"Misty asked us to testify," Aki admits. "Did she invite you, too?"

"Yep." Carly brandishes her shiny 'Press' badge. "I was part of it, too. I mean... Divine k—I-I mean, I was there too!"

"Right," I breathe. I know she hates talking about it, so I'd hate to bring anything up again, but I am curious. I try to pick my next few words carefully. "Why didn't Misty ask you to testify?"

"She thought it was better if she kept it about Toby—about the Movement, in general. Bringing in all of the... well, the stuff that happened would probably confuse the jury and overcomplicate things." She runs a hand through her hair. "Also, my therapist advised against dragging those memories back up."

"Relatable," I say. If she's here, then that means her therapist must have cleared her to come. That means she's come quite a long way since last winter.

"Let's go in all together," Aki suggests. "Friend bubble. The letter did say they were expecting a lot of people."

Almost solemnly, my friends create this wall around us, and together, we start our procession into the courthouse.

The main hall is crowded with reporters, and we have to give our names to a Security who lets us past a gate blocking other people from getting through. Aki, at one point, loops her other arm through Crow's good elbow to help him past people who might jostle him aside. Evan and Jack blaze in front of us, which works out for the better—they're both big and imposing, and it's easy for them to clear the way.

It looks like this will be a popular trial: the former head of the Arcadia Movement, charged with murder and human trafficking.

I lean in toward Aki. "Do you feel that?"

"We're surrounded by psychics," she answers, no louder than a whisper.

"In front of _and_ behind that gate," I tell her. "Like every psychic in Neo Domino, out or not, came to see this."

"Who says some of them weren't potential recruits? If I were an outside psychic and Divine targeted me, I'd want to see this, too."

It takes us a bit to push past people and get to the courtroom––when we arrive, we find that the jury has already been seated, and Misty and her lawyer are at the plaintiff's table. My friends squeeze into a place in the gallery, and Aki and I go down the aisle to see Misty. She meets us at the gate, dressed in all black like today is the funeral she never got for Toby.

"Hey," Aki says. "Feeling okay?"

"Ready to condemn my brother's murderer," she answers. "Thank you two for being willing to help with this."

I fidget. "I'm just glad to get it over with."

"Me too. The sooner they put him down, the better I'll feel."

That phrasing makes me shiver. _Put him down_ , like an animal. Why am I still not sure how to feel about this?

"Hi, girls." Misty's lawyer is a pretty, curvy woman in a grey pant suit who looks not much older than Misty; her intricately braided dark hair has been twisted up behind her head in a knot. She crosses from the plaintiff's table to us and holds out a hand. "Uzoamaka Miyamoto. I'll be questioning you today."

Aki shakes her hand, and I follow her lead. "Nice to meet you."

Misty sent us all of the questions Ms. Miyamoto was planning on asking us—but this is the first time I've met her face to face. Last night, Aki slept over at the loft and we stayed up skimming over the questions for the ten thousandth time, repeating to each other what we're planning on saying. It's the cross-examinations, Misty told us, that'll be the questions we'll have to answer on the spot. We don't know what to expect of whoever will be defending Divine.

"Nervous?" Ms. Miyamoto asks. "Don't be. It'll be all over faster than you can blink."

"I hope you're right," I say. Aki squeezes my hand.

As Aki and I maneuver back to go sit down with our friends, Aki spots her parents a little further back in the gallery and separates from me to go talk to them. Carly, I find, has taken a seat at the other end of the gallery with a bunch of other people in shiny press badges.

I sit in between Yusei and Evan, and we leave enough space for Aki to squeeze in when she gets back. Evan puts his hand on my bouncing leg.

"It'll be okay," he urges.

"This is a lot of people to rip myself open in front of," I whisper.

"I know," he says. "Remember to breathe. Okay?"

"Can't promise that."

Yusei closes his hand around mine. Like he doesn't know what to say, but he wants me to know that he's here.

For a while, we sit in silence, and I'm listening to the chatter in the gallery around us and trying to remember everything I'm going to say. When Aki comes back, she reaches for my other hand, fingers lacing with mine, and we pin our eyes on the judge's bench. It feels like forever that we sit there and wait until the back doors swing open and the gallery goes quiet.

It's instinct—but I shrink when he enters, with a man I assume is a lawyer and three Securities in what I could swear is riot gear. I take in the handcuffs, the shorter hair, the Detention Center mark ripping down his cheek, and the stabilizer around his neck like a collar. Aki squeezes my hand. As if to remind me that she's there.

That feeling that comes with him fills the room—fills _me_ —and that unsettling feeling I recognize begins to set in.

Divine. Here, in the flesh, yards away from me, for the first time in months.

Part of me wants to leap out into the aisleway and rip into him with my bare hands. Another part, the more dominant part of me, just wants to disappear.

A few minutes after Divine is seated, and I've almost had enough of the crushing silence filling the room to the brim, the bailiff calls for the court to rise: "The Honorable Judge Fujioka, presiding."

The judge is a man with salt-and-pepper hair; maybe somewhere in his fifties. He has smile lines, which makes me feel a bit better about the type of person he might be.

He spreads a bunch of papers across the bench. "Case number 4568 is now in session," he says in a voice like gravel, "Misty Lola v. Security Maintenance Bureau. Your opening statements, please."

"Ladies and gentlemen: today my client is making an effort to resolve a three year struggle. She has spent countless amounts of her time and money on private investigators, on therapeutic practices, attempting to somehow overcome the murder of her brother, Mr. Toby Lola. Three years later, ladies and gentlemen, we have determined that the killer of my client's only remaining family is now eligible for _parole_. Parole, when he spent at least half of his life spearheading a movement that tortured and killed children with special abilities. I urge you to examine this situation with every ounce of empathy you can muster. With your help, today, we will make this right."

Misty's lawyer sits back down beside her. The judge looks toward the defense's table.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I urge you to look with your eyes and your minds while reviewing this case." Divine's lawyer starts in a circle in front of the jury box. "Today, we are dealing with a pressing matter that may be more difficult to decipher because of its contents. Some of you may be of the same type as my client—a psychic. Some of you may not be. I urge you to remain as logical as possible when listening through some extraneous details. As we have seen through the introduction of psychics into our society… everything may not be as it seems."

"Smart of him to avoid directly claiming Divine's innocence," Evan, to my left, mutters.

"Thank you," the judge says. "Please call your first witness."

"The prosecution calls Aki Izayoi to the stand," Ms. Miyamoto declares. I reach over my brother to squeeze Aki's hand before she rises, and the court pins their eyes on her as she passes the gate and presents herself to the bailiff. She looks so calm. So collected. As if she's been ready for this for years.

"Do you solemnly swear that you will tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, under pains and penalties of perjury?"

"I do."

"Please step up to the witness stand."

I listen to her shoes on the floor, and as she turns to address the court, she folds her hands in front of her. I can see her swallow. I keep my eyes on her, in case she looks at me, to try to keep her calm.

"Please state your name, age, and occupation for the court."

"My name is Aki Izayoi," she replies. "I'm seventeen years old, and I'm a third-year Upper Secondary student at Duel Academia."

Ms. Miyamoto steps up between the witness stand and the jury box. "You're very young to be involved in this, Ms. Izayoi."

"I know. I offered my word on the matter at Misty's request."

"How kind of you. Why don't you tell the court what your relationship to the defendant is?"

"Divine was my mentor," she says. "When I was thirteen, almost fourteen, I had a fall out with my parents because of my inability to control my powers, and I ran away from home. Divine found me in the Daimon district and offered to let me stay in the Arcadia Movement to train me."

"You're a psychic duelist, then?"

I can almost _hear_ people around us tense.

"Yes." She swallows after she says it.

"Were the reasons for your training ever disclosed to you?"

"Not in entirety. I felt it was safe to assume that I would be better off if I could control myself, but Divine never gave me the express reason for why he wanted to train me."

"Did he ever treat you in a way that caused you to be suspicious of his intentions?"

I finally catch her eye. "Not me. There were others with which his actions were definitely questionable. I don't quite trust myself to talk about my own experiences, because all I remember being was a scared little girl who needed the guidance he gave. The subtleties he issued to me, I didn't have any problems with. I witnessed him be not-so-subtle with other people."

"What, in that case, led him to fall from your favor?"

"I thought that I had witnessed him die, last summer, when the Movement building sustained an attack from an otherworldly entity that I'm sure most of the city's residents recall."

"Yes, of course."

"In the aftermath, my friends and I were allowed to hold a counsel with the late Director Goodwin—his personal assistant, Mikage Sagiri, was able to access Movement files detailing most of his actions as head of the Movement. I had seen the signs before that, but I'm ashamed to say that I ignored them until they were verbalized."

"Is there anything else you can tell us about the defendant's actions? Any that have been committed against you?"

"Besides manipulating me into believing he was a good person that wanted to help me without any gain whatsoever?" Aki manages a light, casual smile. "I don't know how he did it, but he was able to possess me."

Someone in the jury makes an audible gasp. Some people around us start whispering.

"It's some psychic subclass that I haven't heard of," Aki says. "To try and... I don't know, lure me back to the Movement. The scary part is that I remember all of it—I could feel my hands, and I was looking through my own eyes, but I couldn't control anything I was doing or anything I was saying. I just know that he wanted me to destroy everything I could."

"...did you ever cross paths with Mr. Toby Lola? My client has indicated that he was interested in joining the Arcadia Movement because he had seen you duel."

"If I met him, I don't remember it," Aki answers. "I was never allowed to come in contact with new members or candidates, and I used to duel in Daimon a lot. I had a lot of people come up to me and affirm that they wanted to join the Movement because of me. I never directed any of them to Divine, though; he always found them on his own.

"...thank you, Ms. Izayoi. That will be all from me."

Aki starts down from the witness stand, but Divine's lawyer stands. "May I request a cross-examination?"

"Granted," the judge offers.

"Ms. Izayoi," the other lawyer begins. "How many psychics were enlisted in the Arcadia Movement at the time of your membership?"

"About forty, give or take a couple of people, sir."

"Spread out in a twenty story building?" He approaches her. "You word it as though you were my client's willing, star student, and I have reason to believe that he spent most of his time with you. Is that correct?"

"Yes."

"How is it possible that all of these activities can be verified? Where did he have the time to execute them if he was always with you?"

"There are records of these things, sir," Aki says sourly.

"You mentioned the late Director of the Bureau, Rex Goodwin," the lawyer says. "Records state that, at the time that my client formed the Arcadia Movement, he was actively under investigation by Director Goodwin himself for reasons of personal disdain, and of course the Director found nothing. My client has stated that he believes the late Director to have falsified information against him before his untimely death. You did say that Director Goodwin's personal assistant was the one who provided these records to you, correct?"

"Those records were accessed from a Movement database, sir."

"Do you have proof of that?"

Aki looks visibly perturbed. "No. I, personally, don't."

"No further questions, Your Honor."

Aki steps down from the witness stand, her hands still folded in front of her, but clenched into fists, as she exits past the gate. When she sits back down, she reaches for my hand over my brother again and holds it so tightly that her knuckles turn white.

Ms. Miyamoto clears her throat and files through a few of her papers. "The prosecution calls Seria Shimizu to the stand."

 _Seria_. Oh gods. I crane my neck to look for her; my friend. The woman who got me out.

She makes her way to the witness stand in a white dress and a blazer, and her hair's grown long enough that she can pull it back now. She steps up to the bailiff, delivers the oath, and then takes her place at the witness stand.

"Please state your name, age, and occupation for the court."

"My name is Seria Shimizu," she answers blankly. "I'm twenty-nine years old and I'm the Director of the Elysium Group."

"What is the Elysium Group, Ms. Shimizu?"

"I founded Elysium in the aftermath of Divine's exit from Arcadia," Seria answers. "It's a nonprofit open training facility and home for psychics in Neo Domino and Satellite."

"You are a psychic as well, then, I presume?"

"I am, yes."

Ms. Miyamoto folds her hands in front of her and leans over the plaintiff table; as if she's having a casual conversation. "What was your relationship to the defendant?"

"Divine and I are childhood… _friends_ ," Seria says, with some difficulty. "We grew up on the same street in uptown Neo Domino, and we attended Duel Academia together."

"What was that like?"

"If you're asking about his arc as a person, he seemed completely normal all throughout our childhood. He and I both exhibited our powers around the same time, and he spent an exorbitant amount of time in my home, as my parents were both psychic and his were not."

"Can you tell us any details leading up to the founding of the Arcadia Movement?"

"He had a very strained relationship with his parents. His mother was a very soft spoken woman that only desired good things for her son despite the fact that she couldn't understand his power. His father, on the other hand, was incredibly frightened by his son's abilities. He saw them as a challenge, I suppose. Infringing upon his authority. Divine spent so much time around my family that, after his father finally threw him out, he already had a room in my home."

"So one might chalk this up to family issues?"

"Maybe. Maybe not. Despite the home troubles, Divine acted like every other kid in Neo Domino. Duel Academia was absolutely normal for us." Seria rests her chin in her hand, like being up in front of all these people doesn't faze her. "Divine graduated with flying colors; he was valedictorian, actually. Popular, loved by teachers and students… Actually, he wanted to go to university to specialize in social justice."

"How, exactly, did a model citizen resort to murder, then?"

"He came back from university raving that he would never return to it," Seria answers. "Divine's main subclass, as a psychic, is Elementalism. It's a specialization that has to do with telekinetic manipulation of elements, and he specializes in fire. He displayed his powers for one of his friends at some interval, somewhere, and I guess some other student was afraid of it. Overly religious, or just freaked out, or something, and had the little incident blown way out of proportion; a whole group of students formed that called themselves 'Anti-Psychics' and got him kicked out. He was furious about someone being so afraid and angry at something that was entirely under control, something that wasn't even that large of an issue. He had friends who, too, were psychics enrolled with him, who didn't step up for him. Everything that had happened with his father just sort of… finally hit him, with that. A breaking point, I'd say. He was sick of having his life blown apart. That, at least, is the story I've heard from _him_. I can't quite attribute to how biased it could be."

"Whether or not the story bears bias, I do have records that confirm his university termination. Tell me, are issues like these very common?"

"Are they _common_?" Seria laughs. "I could have guessed it would happen. Even back then, psychics weren't really classified, and most of them had to sit through attempts at exorcisms or trying not to draw attention to themselves if their powers went out of control. There was no way to train your abilities unless you did it yourself—I was lucky that my parents were self-trained, and that they helped to train both me and Divine. Even _now_ , did you see the amount of people in here that tensed up when the previous witness and I both said we were psychics? We're nothing to be afraid of, but the number of people who don't stop and think that we're human beings and should be treated as such is _astounding_."

It's so silent after that, a pin could drop.

"I'm not excusing anything that Divine has done," Seria continues. "And I have no plans to. But a lot of my people that go off the deep end could have been saved if they were given a chance to explain themselves and what makes them special. There's blame to be passed around, here."

"I've noted that, thank you." Ms. Miyamoto straightens up a little. "Please continue, regarding Arcadia."

"Right. I didn't hear from Divine for years after that; it was like he'd gone completely off of the grid. I didn't hear a word from him until I'd graduated university, myself. He contacted me on the grounds that he was beginning a group solely for psychics, where people like us could go and learn to control our powers. So I supported him, because I thought it was a great idea. I thought he had bounced back and was ready to counter with a positive effort toward helping others like us. Somehow he'd amassed a fortune large enough to acquire the building that became the Arcadia Movement, and then he just started… collecting, I guess."

"Collecting?"

"The process for entrance into the Movement, to my disdain, was very… _exclusive_ ," Seria admits. "I was under the impression that, if you could be detected by a Specifier, you were in. But Divine would vet everyone interested, and he would take those who exhibited more than one specialization. Then he would test them to make sure that it was true. The Movement had less than a hundred psychics at its height because only so many people fit the bill."

"What was your role in Arcadia?"

"I served as Divine's right hand," Seria responds. "I kept him organized, and I usually kept correspondence with potential candidates. Later on, when I caught wind of what he was doing in all of his tests, I tried to confront him about it. He was far too rooted in what he was doing to understand that it was wrong, and every time I tried to press him for his intentions, he would divert my questions."

"How long did you remain with Arcadia?"

"Until the attack on it, last summer. I evacuated everyone and founded Elysium about a month later."

"Did you ever meet Toby Lola?"

"I did," Seria answers. "As a matter of fact, I remember him. He came striding into my office and declared that he wanted to be strong like Aki Izayoi. All smiles and confidence. I should have deterred him from going on from there, but from what I sensed, I thought he was strong enough to impress Divine. That pre-appointment was the first and last time I ever saw him in the Movement."

"Thank you, Ms. Shimizu. No further questions."

"Cross-examination, You Honor?" Divine's lawyer requests, and I feel Aki try to contain a sigh next to me.

"Granted," the judge states.

"Ms. Shimizu," the lawyer begins, "why didn't you leave Arcadia, if it was as displeasing to you as you say?"

"I'm not sure I ever used the word 'displeasing,' Mr. Faber," Seria tells him. Does she know him? "I stayed because, without my input, without anyone else as high up beside Divine as me, he could keep hurting everyone that walked into the Movement without anyone to stop him."

"And, did you "stop" him?"

"There were certain things he did that I had no hope of stopping," Seria answers. "I did what I could. And I stayed from beginning to end so that I could help anyone who needed it. Anyone who, for whatever reason, needed out but couldn't leave for a myriad of reasons. Anything little, anything crucial, until the universe finally invited them to escape."

"My client is being accused of torture, Ms. Shimizu, so I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to be a little bit more specific."

"You know what, Mr. Faber? He's also being accused of murder, which he absolutely committed. The missing persons reports that followed our denied candidates are proof enough. If you need numbers, though, the height of our Movement registered seventy eight members."

 _Seventy eight_?

"On that last day, when the building almost came down, we checked out with thirty nine. The most recent escapee being five days before then. After the first few times, it was nothing. The tenth came around and he became suspicious. When we reached twenty, he started limiting my access to certain files, certain areas of the Movement, certain supplies that I could use. He knew I was freeing people, but he couldn't prove it, even though he was angry with me every time and lost over half of his numbers in the span of six months. Cross-examine me all you like, but I did what I could while in the same vicinity as a high-functioning sociopath."

The lawyer, Mr. Faber, adjusts his glasses. "No further questions."

Seria steps down from the bench and returns to her seat, barely containing the bit of a smile that's creeping up onto her lips.

"Your Honor," Faber says, tottering back toward the defendant's table, "I'm sure most of the court is familiar with criminal proceedings, and I would like to question why it is that you have allowed no real evidence to be displayed."

"If testimonies aren't enough for you, Mr. Faber," Ms. Miyamoto pipes up, "then I'm afraid you may have nothing at all to use to attempt to acquit your client."

Faber clears his throat, then sits down.

Ms. Miyamoto shuffles through her papers again, straightening up. "The prosecution calls Silvan Levine to the stand."

Moment of truth. Aki squeezes my hand. I wobble up onto my feet, shimmying past the others in the aisle way, until I'm out in the open and I can approach the gate. I feel too many eyes boring into the back of my skull.

I lie my hand on the bailiff's book. "Do you solemnly swear that you will tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, under pains and penalties of perjury?"

I swallow a lump that's formed in my throat. "I do."

"Please step up to the witness stand."

I totter up the step into the box—it's so compact that my elbows brush the sides of it, so I settle for folding my hands and putting them on top of the wooden lip.

Ms. Miyamoto nods toward me. "Please state your name, age, and occupation for the court."

"My name is Silvan Levine," I say. "I'm nineteen years old, and I work as a mechanic for Daily Automotive in downtown Neo Domino."

"Are you a psychic as well?"

"Yes."

"What is your relationship to the defendant?"

"He's—" I swallow. "My kidnapper."

There's some uneasy muttering going on in the gallery.

"Please expound upon that, if you can," Ms. Miyamoto urges.

"You know," I say, feeling short of breath, "I honestly wish that I could. The truth of the matter is, Ms. Miyamoto, that I can't remember anything."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I was brought into the Arcadia Movement, evidently, without a past and without a name," I answer. "Before I left the Movement, every memory I had was exclusively of Divine, exclusively in the Movement. I thought that I grew up there. Until I learned what genetics were and how they worked, I thought Divine was my father."

She moves a paper a little. "Will you please explain the significance of 'Cipher'?"

"It was my name," I say. "Like I said… I came without a name. To the best of my knowledge, at least. When he took me, I guess he didn't even bother to figure out what it was. But for some _f..._ _reason_ , he thought that 'Cipher' was the best name to give me. At first, I thought it was pretty cool. No one could say that their name was Cipher. I got my hands on a dictionary at some point and saw that a 'Cipher' meant a placeholder. An extra zero. Pointless, in essence. I asked everyone to call me 'C' until I left Arcadia and was able to find someone who knew what my real name was."

"Please explain to the court how you discovered that you had been kidnapped."

"My best friend Aki Izayoi participated in the Fortune Cup last summer," I ramble. "I wanted to see her duel in real life—on a professional stage, where everyone might be able to see how great she is. Divine never let me go outside, though. I'd been banned from leaving the Movement my whole life, for reasons I never knew, and the first time I was brave enough to sneak out was when I was just about to turn eighteen. I snuck out to go watch her duel, and it turned out that someone there knew me—recognized me.

"He and I put the pieces together, that he'd had a friend who had disappeared when we were children—about ten years old. The girl who had disappeared had a twin brother, and I looked just like him. Plus… we're both psychic, so it just sort of fit. You would think I'd have memories of my home before the Movement, having been taken from it at ten, but I also have memories of Divine teaching me to read and write. One of my friends confirmed that my caretaker in Satellite had already taught us to do those things, so I can only assume that, somehow, my memory had been taken from me.

"After the Fortune Cup, I left Arcadia and went back to Satellite, where it turns out I'm from. And I got my brother and my name back."

"Besides the obvious reason of kidnapping… why did you leave?"

"May I approach the jury box?" I say, looking up toward the judge.

The judge gives a stern nod.

I step down from the witness stand and totter toward the jury's bench––and put both my arms down in front of the first two people I see, a plump lady with short dark hair and a boy around my age with round glasses and purple streaked-hair.

"Ignore the tattoos," I say. I point to the raised white circular scar on my forearm, near my elbow. "What does that look like to you?"

"A, uhm…" The boy glances up at me. "Like a bite mark?"

"Like a little animal, maybe," the lady offers. "It looks like sharp teeth." Other people in the jury box are standing, leaning over each other, trying to get a look.

"Good guesses," I say. "They're from electrodes."

The woman looks like she's going to swallow her tongue.

"For checkups, health-related things, heartbeat, blood pressure, brain waves, Divine would use stick-on electrodes," I say. "The kind you see in movies, sort of. Every time I disobeyed him, if he caught me going outside, if I did anything he didn't like, he would take me down to the testing quadrant at the basement level and deliver two to five minutes of voltage into me. Through those electrodes—six to eight, usually, along my arms and legs, and once on both sides of my head—the ones that grab, yeah, like little sharp teeth, and he did it enough times that they scarred."

"That should have killed you." It's the judge who speaks up this time. "Human beings who sustain electrical injuries on any level are always either seriously injured or killed."

"I survived based on a subclass I discovered after I met my brother," I state. "It's called Internalization. It allows my body to internalize energy and store it instead of taking it as a serious injury. I can't say whether or not Divine knew that I could sustain energy that way, just that he kept doing it when he thought the situation called for it." A brash, angry wave of heat scores up my spine as I say, "Would you like to see?"

Ms. Miyamoto gestures for me to continue. "Please."

I lift up my hand, digging in and in and into myself, and my fingers sparkle with audible blue electricity.

The gallery uproars.

" _Order_!" The judge bangs his gavel until the crowd is still uneasy, but mostly quiet.

"For the record, I have my brother plug things into sockets for me. I don't want to go near anything that expels electricity again for as long as I live. The secondary subclass that I have, called Expulsion, allows me to give off the energy I sustain."

The static spreads up my arm, until it reaches my stabilizer, and glitters for a few more seconds before it crackles away into the air.

"I've used a lot of the static that I've Internalized—but I've seen a psycho-physician, and according to her, there's still enough electricity in me to persist, probably, for ten or twelve more years. My body isn't ever going to be the same, either—Internalizer or not, I've lost a lot of functionality in nerve endings and pain receptors all over me. I can't fully use my powers because I'm not strong enough for it. Not to mention all of the things I've got to talk to my therapist about every week."

The judge bangs his gavel a couple more times to quiet the muttering gallery.

"How did you leave Arcadia?" Ms. Miyamoto asks as I step back up to the witness stand.

"Seria," I say. It takes every ounce of self control I have to keep my eyes pinned on Ms. Miyamoto, to _not_ look for Seria's wonderful face somewhere in that crowd. "I was the last person to leave Arcadia before it disbanded. Seria was there for me every second, every morning, noon, and night. She brought me anything I asked for, anything to try and make me happy or, at the least, comfortable, and when I told her that I had found someone who knew me, she did everything she could to get me out. She covered for me, she always nursed me back to health, she gave me a duel runner when I left the Movement, for crying out loud… From day one, she had my back, and she told me that she wouldn't stop until there was no one else that Divine could hurt. I owe everything to her. I owe her my life."

"Silvan, you are living proof of every claim my client has made against the defendant," Ms. Miyamoto says. "What is that experience like?"

It's a question I prepared for, but it takes a second to get the words out of my throat. "It's—strange. Nothing ever really feels real. My therapist makes me go back and dig up everything I can, to talk about it and try to resolve it, or whatever, but it sort of feels like looking through a screen. After being in the situation I was for so long, it still takes me a second to realize that there are things I'm allowed to do, that I'm allowed to _feel_. She told me that—that captivity is a mentality that you bring with you, even after your body leaves it, and sometimes in the middle of the night I still feel it, and I have to go walking outside just to prove to myself that I _can_."

If it's intentional or not, I don't know, but I look at Divine for the first time since he entered the room. Some part of me still shrinks at the sight of him, of his face, saying that I'm in danger, that I'm in trouble…

He looks—totally emotionless. Like nothing I've said has resonated with him at all.

"I have to admit, though," I say, swallowing, thinking back to months and months ago when I dreamt of being able to tell him how I felt, "there's something surreal and satisfying about seeing my abuser in chains."

"Thank you," Ms. Miyamoto says. "No further questions."

"May I request a cross-examination?" Mr. Faber asks.

The judge, sounding particularly disgruntled, answers, "Granted."

"Lovely tattoos, Ms. Levine," Faber says as he approaches the witness stand. "Did you say that you were merely nineteen?"

"Objection," Ms. Miyamoto calls. "I had hoped you wouldn't stoop to _ad hominem_ today, please."

"Relevant questions only, Mr. Faber," the judge confirms.

Ah, I knew I should have worn a jacket, or something. I told Aki _somebody_ would put together the 'illegal' part of the tattoos. I try to keep my lips pursed and my face blank as Faber looks me up and down. I'm not allowed to curse or talk back or anything during this. At least, that was what I was told. I just have to try and stump this asswipe, make sure there's nothing he can do to try to twist my words against me.

"Did you say that you originated from the Satellite sector, Ms. Levine?" He asks.

"I did."

"Though I feel for you and your gut-wrenching story, I am having difficulty believing that someone would travel all the way to Satellite to steal children. This most certainly happened before the completion of Daedalus, correct? In a city absolutely rife with gifted people, I don't see a very high probability in my client traveling so far for, what… _one_ little girl? Were there others he took from Satellite, too?"

"No, just me," I say, trying to put my hand up in front of my mouth to hide a rueful smile. I had no intention of bringing what I know about my family into this. This is supposed to just be about Toby and all the other kids Divine killed. But, if that's where this person is venturing, then maybe I'll have to bring it up. Maybe that will make this open-and-shut. "Divine came to Satellite just for me."

"That seems like a very impossible prospect, Ms. Levine."

"Actually, it isn't," I say. I take a breath and try to organize my thoughts enough to put them out into words. "I was born here, in Neo Domino, actually. My father, Dr. Sören Levine, was the Executive Project Designer for the Ener-D Initiative, and my mother, Dr. Rei Hamada, was a neurosurgeon who stayed present in the Reactor Lab to study the effects of Ener-D on the human brain. Both of them were killed in Zero Reverse, which left me and my brother to grow up essentially alone. It's on public record. I shared your confusion, actually, because my brother, as well, is a psychic. He shares my exact same abilities, but Divine came and took me alone. Very recently, I learned that it was entirely due to a relationship he must have had with my mother. To my understanding, it wasn't remotely any type of romantic relationship—as a matter of fact, I've come to understand that Divine believes my mother to have 'picked' my father over him."

"You're chalking this up to a lovers' quarrel, Ms. Levine?"

"My mother had no love for Divine," I say, with absolute certainty. "He felt something for her. And he hated my father, believing that his circumstances would change if my father wasn't present. Last winter, when he possessed my friend Aki and tried to take us both back into some semblance of Arcadia, he admitted to me that he believed he was entitled to both me and my brother—that we should have been _his_ children. And the only reason he left my brother alone is because he takes a bit too much after our father."

Faber is halfway through some question about how 'I expect him to believe that', when I can feel a spike of horrible, familiar heat shoot upward into the air, and I whirl to look at the only person it could be coming from: Divine.

Faber stops when he sees that I'm not looking his way anymore, and only then does he notice the sudden silence, and behind him in the gallery, where both Aki and Evan are standing, ready to react, their eyes turned on Divine.

"What's going on?" The judge demands.

I put as much venom into my voice that I can—thinking about all of the innocent people in this room, Misty who just wants her brother's retribution, Carly who suffered in tenfold because of Divine—and I tell him, " _Don't you try it_."

He—He _smiles_ at me. I force myself to keep my eyes on him, in this standoff, refusing to be anything other than unshakeable. I refuse to let him see any fear on my face.

Faber is the one to break the silence. "...no further questions, Your Honor."

The judge bangs his gavel. "I'm ordering a recess. Security, please remove the defendant."

The Securities spring to life and haul Divine up and out of the room. As soon as he's gone, I feel light-headed and realize that I'm still in the witness stand.

The bailiff, a big man that reminds me a little bit of Ushio, asks, "Miss? Are you all right?"

I manage my sweetest smile. "Just give me a second to remember how to use my legs."


	53. Lone Gunman

I spend some time in the bathroom trying to remember how to breathe during the recess, Aki waiting for me outside the stall the entire time.

"They need to put more stabilizers on him," I whisper. The bathroom is empty enough that it echoes.

"He didn't do that because he wanted to attack you," Aki says. "He did it to try to spook you."

"Well it _worked_."

"...it didn't seem like it."

"But he _smiled_ at me, Aki. Why did he do that?"

"If you had shrunk, he would have won that argument. You would have shown him and the court that you're still afraid. But you didn't."

I shake my head. "It didn't feel good. This is what he wanted me to be like back then. He didn't want me to lie down and take it. There's no winning in this situation."

"Better for you to show him he doesn't scare you than to show him he does. At least, now, he knows he can't try anything."

"I… I guess…"

When the court returns to session, I stare at the floor with my hands clenched against my trousers. I'm pretty sure I dissociate my way through the rest of the trial. I don't think Faber calls many witnesses, if he calls any. I'm not paying attention and I can't remember the proceedings. Aki shakes me out of a trance when the judge calls another recess, and the jury files out in a line, into one door to the left of the courtroom.

Not twenty minutes later—the minimum time, I think, required for jury deliberation—the jury returns, and the foreman gets up to say "We find the defendant guilty of all charges."

The hall erupts with noise, and beside me, Aki looks relieved. But I don't feel happy for some reason. Just tired.

The Security officers hoist Divine up out from behind the defendant's table and start to escort him out. I can feel him looking our way. I can feel that familiar heat in the back of my throat. That spike of energy from him. I feel Aki's hand clench around mine again.

 _He did it to try to spook you,_ I can still hear Aki saying. _Better for you to show he doesn't scare you than to show him he does._

I lock eyes with him as he comes toward us down the aisleway; his lips are pursed in a straight line, as if to keep the fire behind them from escaping. There's something there on his face that I've seen only once before, all those months ago.

Fear.

Would he… do that? Would he attack? In a room of psychics, of Securities with guns at their waists, would he risk trying to escape before he could be taken to his death?

Yusei's breath whisks past my ear, over my tense shoulder. "You've done enough. It's okay."

It's not. It's not enough.

"Wait," I say; my voice breaks a little, but the head Security hears me and their procession halts. The entire hall goes _silent_.

Aki looks at me, alarm brightening her face, when I stand up.

"Do it," I hear myself say. "I dare you."

Divine just looks at me.

"It's pretty ballsy of you to think you could get away with all of this without consequence and _still_ make an empty attempt to be a threat at your own damn trial."

His voice comes out—raspy. Like it's been a while since he's spoken. "You grew teeth."

"...I always had them."

He coughs this sort-of laugh. Says nothing else. _Does_ nothing else beyond stare at me.

"You can—take him away now."

The Security to his left yanks Divine by the arm to get him out of the room, and I stay standing, watching, in that silent room, as Divine cranes his neck and fire splays outward from his mouth.

There are people screaming and ducking all around me. I stretch my hand out as if to greet it, and it turns pink and gold as it inclines inward toward my fingers.

The Securities coil around him in a tight circle, forcing him to the ground, and one of them produces something that looks like a muzzle. Like he's done this before. The last embers of Divine's flames fade into my skin, the Securities get the muzzle on him, and then they drag him out. Screaming the whole way.

Evan retracts his hand from my arm, where it was resting near my elbow. As if he was trying to see how he could help.

And still, he's screaming, screaming, screaming. Divine. I can still hear him long after he's left the room.

I think a couple of the jury members come over to shake my hand, to say something about how sorry they are for me, that they hope this helps somehow. Young psychics, I suppose they are, crowd up around me and Aki, talking about how they've heard of her from Daimon, how they saw us in the WRGP. How amazing it was that I could suck up Divine's fire. I look over the tops of their heads for one specific lifeline—for Seria—but I can't find her anywhere.

Maybe she means more to me than I do to her.

Misty is smiling when I see her. Aki's parents meet us outside and offer to take us all out to eat to 'celebrate', but I tell my brother that I just want to go home.

Outside, reporters chase after us until there's a group of Securities around us that have to shoo them away. Yusei puts his hands on my shoulders and rubs, as if trying to relieve the pressure there.

I'm trying to feel something. _Anything_. Glad, or—or even uncomfortable about just sending Divine to his death.

But I feel nothing.

Another hand closes gently around my shoulder, nails pricking into my tattoo; Aki comes into view, framing my face with her hands. She put a little bit of lipstick on today, cherry red. I can't bring myself to look her in the eye. I focus, dazed, on the thin strip of eyeliner tapering out from one of her eyelids.

"Do you want me to stay with you, Silvan?" She asks. I don't know if she's asked me more than once.

"No," I croak. "Go celebrate with your parents."

"Are you _sure_?"

"Yes."

" _Positive_?"

"Yes."

She pauses. "I'll be over right after lunch. Okay?"

"If you want," I say.

She arches up—she's still taller than me, even when we're both wearing heels—and kisses the top of my head. "Take a bath. Make some hot cocoa. I'll bring some nail polish when I come around." She pokes Evan, who's on my other side, hard in the shoulder. " _Make sure she takes care of herself_."

"I-I will."

Aki starts toward her parents, but… stops, suddenly. And sets her eyes on Crow.

In the easiest voice I've ever heard, she asks, "Would you like to join us?"

Crow raises his eyebrows. "...well, sure. I'd love to, if you'd have me."

She holds her hand out for him, and when he steps to take it, she slips her fingers into the crook of his elbow and walks him off in the direction of her folks. I don't notice if anyone really reacts.

"Can you drive okay?" Yusei asks me gently. He brushes a bit of my hair behind my ear.

"I think so."

"Can I drive you just in case?" He asks.

"I can do it."

But when he lets go of me and I start toward Hiraeth at the other end of the lot, heat coils up in my fingertips and a tendril of flame explodes out of my skin, scoring the asphalt with pink and orange and heat and ash. Sparks spray up everywhere, then Yusei is at my side again, his hands on mine. He starts a little—my fingers must be scorching—but he stays where he is, holding my hands to keep them from shaking.

"Was that Divine's?" He breathes.

"I—I didn't want it," I mutter.

"I know. It's okay. Let me drive."

So I do.

Evan takes Hiraeth and the twins and lets Kiryu drive Vertigo. I cling to Yusei, my fingers pressed in against his stomach and my chin in his back.

When we make it back home, Yusei physically lifts me off of the back of the runner—and I don't realize it until I'm already in his arms and my feet hit the ground.

"Do you want to go inside and change into something more comfortable?" He asks. "Those heels can't be very forgiving."

They're not—the balls of my feet hurt like hell—but I don't really say anything. I feel like I'm going through the motions, heading inside, sliding the shoes off, hoisting myself upstairs, peeling my clothes away from my body. I toss them in a little pile toward the laundry basket by my desk; I don't feel motivated enough to pick them off the floor and put them where they belong.

In the bathroom, I methodically rub the makeup away from my face. The lipstick smears in an uneven peachy line toward my cheek. My arms itch. My stabilizer feels uncomfortably cold.

I dress in billowy black pants that cuff at my ankles and a white sweater that shows a bit of my belly. The first comfy clothes I picked up. When I make it back downstairs, everyone is gathered together in a circle that begins on the couch and rounds the coffee table. Evan is at the kitchenette with Kiryu, making what I think is some semblance of lunch.

Rua and Ruka sit together in front of the table; Rua asks, "Do all court things only take a few hours?"

"Only the open and shut cases, or civil discrepancies," Carly tells him. She's curled underneath Jack's arm, and I move to sit on the couch in between her and Yusei, where a space has been left for me. "Some criminal trials can take months on end."

" _Months_?"

"Usually, if the defendant has a build-able case, there'll be more witnesses. More evidence to present to the court."

"Why didn't this one take that long?" Ruka chimes.

"Divine was about to be eligible for parole," Yusei replies. "Misty didn't want him out in the open."

"And she had _more_ than enough to get the sentence overturned," Carly says. "It's still a mystery as to why Divine was eligible for release in the first place."

"They're trying to make the system easier to get out of for Satellites that were wrongfully punished, is what I've heard." Yusei crosses his arms. "They're going through cases and reviewing them one at a time. Good and bad points, I guess. You were in there for an indeterminate amount of time when I was in. But this was such a big deal, I seriously doubt his release can be chalked up to misfiled paperwork."

"So… what happens now?" Ruka asks.

I swallow. "They kill him."

"They… they _what_?"

"It could only have been that in the first place," I say. "With the types of crimes he committed."

"Most of those files Aki talked about in her testimony are on public record now, because they belonged to Goodwin. The ones that aren't were shut for the case. Anyways, they detail all of the Bureau's findings from Arcadia's fall." Carly crosses her ankles and peers down at the floor. "There's plenty to implicate him with."

"Is it possible he was just… pretending to be good?" Rua asks. "And they believed he'd changed?"

"From the high level of security around him and the fucking _collar_ , I seriously doubt it," Jack retorts.

"But it's in his nature," I say softly. "To pretend he did nothing wrong."

"Gaslighting an already guilty governing body? Sounds about right," Yusei says. He looks at me for a long moment, then holds his arm up like he's welcoming me in toward him. I need the contact now—something to make me feel grounded. I tuck in underneath his arm, pulling my legs up into the couch with me and leaning my head against his chest. His heart beats fast underneath my ear.

"At least, when it's over, we won't have to worry about him," Ruka offers. "...right?"

Yusei squeezes my shoulder. "We won't ever have to see him again, that's for sure."

"Hey, Silvan?" Kiryu's voice says from behind me. His hand touches my shoulder very gently. "Do you want anything to drink? Coffee? Tea?"

"...tea sounds okay."

"All right. Anyone else? Anybody want anything?"

"Coffee would be great," Jack chimes.

"Coffee," Carly echoes.

Kiryu goes to put on a pot of coffee, and to heat up some water for tea.

Yusei puts one of his hands on top of mine, and I sort of just stare down at our fingers, half-intertwined, while he tries to make new conversation. I'm still trying to figure out what this feeling is, and why some of the pressure's been lifted off of my shoulders just by him being here. I know he can't protect me from Divine. I know he can't protect me from me. But why does that make me feel better? Is it because of how much of me that he's seen? So many of my ugly, brash emotions only ever seem to come out for him. He's the only one besides my brother that I know would wait them out. But I don't want to burden Evan with my emotions, not now, not when he's in the middle of feeling out this new relationship with Kiryu.

If it had just been me and Divine in that courtroom, maybe those ugly emotions would've come back. Maybe I would've had the strength to rip him apart. And yet, I feel so starved of an opportunity; he just gets to die. He gets to escape a worse punishment. I don't get to see him locked up for at _least_ the time that I was.

Kiryu hands me a mug over my shoulder. I murmur a 'thank you' and breathe in the steam off the top of the cup. Yusei, who I see looking at me when I turn slightly, looks like there's something he wants to say to me. But whatever it is, he keeps it to himself.

"So, um." Carly is the one who starts the conversation back up. "What's the schedule looking like, guys? Until the WRGP preliminaries finish?"

"Well, we don't have any races for a while," Yusei says. "We're out of the prelims, so we just get to kick it for a little while. Go back to work and stuff."

"Wait for Crow to get better," Jack says, scrolling absentmindedly through something on his phone.

I take a sip of tea and then put the mug down on the coffee table. "How many more weeks is that, until the competition's into the official bracket?"

"Can't remember." Yusei rubs between his eyes. "I'll have to check the schedule again."

"Oh, wait, speaking of Crow," Kiryu says from the kitchenette, "Did anyone else see the Aki thing coming?"

"I SWEAR I've been trying to matchmake them FOREVER!" Carly exclaims. "He _really_ likes her."

"Well, I'm glad she's giving him a chance," Yusei remarks. "I think they both deserve that."

" _Whoa_ kay," Jack interjects. "This is—fuck this. Can I read you guys this email I just got?"

The conversation halts as Jack peers at his phone.

"'Jack Atlas'," Jack reads, half-incredulously, "'I have envisioned a terrible future for you. If you do not acquire a different method of fighting, I guarantee that, by your own strength, you shall _die.'_ "

Carly perks up and swings her hand to go grabbing for Jack's phone. "Oh, _whoever_ this is is about to get a piece of my mind."

"Wait wait wait!" Jack raises his arm out of her reach and keeps reading. "I ask you, in the sincerest fashion, to find me in Nazca; what I have seen brings me to fear that I may be the only person able to help you. Regards, _Bommer_."

"The Killer Whale guy?" Rua exclaims.

"I was going to suggest that it was spam before you read the closing," Yusei says. "What's the email address?"

"Something in Spanish followed by an AOL."

"That… might be real, then. Do you have any of his contact info? Email him back, maybe."

"You're not actually suggesting this is true?"

"Maybe it could be," Yusei says. "It's Bommer. He had spiritual connections before last summer. If it's really him and he has a bad feeling, it could be worth the trip."

"To fucking Nazca. To gods-damned _Peru_."

"Yeah, sure. Why not?" I feel his chest start as he scoffs. "If it were my life on the line, I'd travel further."

"Ugh. I guess—fine. I'll… I'll email him back, I _guess_." Jack leans forward and furiously starts to type. "How'd he get my email, anyways?"

"If he's got an email, he's got the Internet, I don't think it was that difficult," Yusei retorts.

I pick at my nail. "Jack goes on a transnational trip to stay alive. That's a new one." At this point, I'm just glad the subject has changed. I really don't want to feel this terrible all day.

"Oh, _hell_ no. If I'm going to Nazca, I am _not_ going alone."

Carly says, "I'll go! Romantic sleuthing mission!"

Jack frowns deeply. "I… don't think that's a good idea."

"The Lines are there, Carly," Yusei says gently. "I don't want to tell you how to live, but I'd only want you going that close to Earthbounds if you _really_ trusted yourself."

Her face pales. "...I see."

"Yusei, since you're so keen on telling me to look into this, why aren't you jumping to come with me?" Jack says.

Yusei opens and closes his mouth. Then, not too inconspicuously, looks at me. I don't know if he's looking for an answer or if he's looking for permission.

Gods, what the hell would he need my permission for?

"You should go," I say softly. "Bommer's… he's one of the old Dark Signers, right? I think, if he says something is wrong, you should check it out."

"I—I want to be here for you," he stammers.

"I'll be okay," I murmur. "Promise. I just… I need some time to unwind."

"Are you _sure_?"

"Yes," I say, even though I feel like I'm lying.

Yusei throws a withering look at Jack. "...fine. If we go, we won't stay long. I'll do some time calculations for how long the trip will be, and we'll _only_ stay for a _short_ time."

"That's fine!" Jack throws his hands up. "I just! If Bommer's slinging truths around, I'd. Rather _not_ die, you know?"

"Then we'll go as soon as possible and come right back. As soon as he emails you back, we'll make a decision on it. Can you call Mikage? Or Ushio? Or somebody that can help us arrange some possible transportation?"

"Yes. I will. Immediately," Jack says, standing, still typing on his phone.

Yusei turns back to me, looking a little exasperated.

"He's got a reason to be worried," I say. "It's okay."

"Yes, but I'm still worried about you."

"It's like I said. I'll be okay." I put my hand on his arm. "I promise. And you're coming right back. It'll all be good."

"...are you telling _me_ that? Or you?"

"A… A little of both."

"Hey, we're all here, too." Evan leans over the back of the couch and kisses the top of my head. "Sorry, I was boiling stuff. But we're all here for you, too, Silvan."

"I… know…"

"I know it's easy to just latch on to Yusei," my brother says, "especially after all of the things you went through together in escaping Arcadia." His tone sweetens a little. "Plus he's _so darn charismatic_."

Yusei makes a big deal out of rolling his eyes.

"But, really." Evan rubs my head. "We are here. And if ever you feel ready to open up about any of that, we're still here to support you. Even if you decide not to tell anybody else."

"...thank you," I murmur.

"Silvan, you…" Carly scooches a little closer. "You have a lot of support systems, you know. You have your family, and all of us. And me and Aki, we—" she swallows. "We dealt with Divine, too. You can't forget that there are so many people who love you."

 _Why_ , I want to ask. Why would so many _good_ people want to love me when I'm...

"Thank you," I say again, because I can't say anything else. Not right now. Not without losing my cool in one way or another.

"Are you guys all done being dramatic? _Because_ —" Rua sails over the coffee table. "As a button to this gross and sad conversation, I suggest a GROUP HUG!"

Before I know it, everyone is crowding on me, over me, and on top of me, laughing and muttering about who smells questionable or whose miscellaneous body part is on top of whose. Yusei, his face squashed against mine, smiles a little. And, as if only he can see it happen, he puts a gentle little kiss on my cheek.

I lean into him, into the _warmth_ that that elicits in me; his thumb brushes over the scar on my throat. If I could stay here in this cocoon of my friends forever, until Divine and his screaming fade away into a distant memory, I think I might finally consider _really_ making an effort to be truly happy.

I know Jack's back in the room suddenly, because I hear his voice say, "NOT WITHOUT ME, YOU LOT DON'T!" and when he barrels into us, we all careen, screeching, onto the floor as the couch tips right over and takes us with it.


	54. The Sound of Thunder

Late in the evening, I'm tossing and turning. Over the course of the day, clouds crept over the city and now I can hear rain beating against my window. I reach for my phone on the nightstand, crawl out of bed, and move for the door. I promised Yusei I would try to sleep tonight, but as expected, it isn't going well.

Another thing I can hear on my way down the hall is Kiryu, who—isn't very good at being quiet. But even though I don't have a lot of shame, I know my brother does, so I'll save him the embarrassment and just not mention it.

Downstairs, I turn the lamp by the desktop on and move back towards the kitchenette to make a pot of coffee. I throw my phone down on the couch on my way over.

Yusei and Jack nabbed a flight that should have left an hour-or-so ago. Bommer emailed back pretty quickly, asking them to come immediately, so they made arrangements to _leave_ immediately. Mikage scored them last-minute transportation for their duel runners, and all they had to do was foot a bill for plane tickets. A nine, maybe ten hour plane ride in to Peru, or something like that. Three days is all they'll be gone for. I can survive three days. Right?

I think it was tough for Yusei to go—it certainly seemed like it—even though I promised I'd be okay. Even though I have plenty of other friends to keep me company. Even though I have this insatiable urge to stay up and throw all my thoughts at him.

I remember the promise I made and begrudgingly scoop decaf coffee grounds into the filter.

Aki and I are spending the day together tomorrow. I turn my fingers over in the dim light, admiring the shiny black nail polish she put there earlier today. Back in Arcadia, she used to pop into my room—Aki was the only one Divine allowed to have pretty things like cosmetics—and file my bitten nails until they were smooth. She'd tell me about her day and let me pick one of her sparkly bottles of paint, and together we'd unwind and chat while waiting for it to dry. The paint would be so smooth and shiny, so pretty and new, that I'd be too scared of ruining it to chew it off.

Old habits die hard, hers and mine.

When my coffee is done brewing, I pour myself a cup, curl into a blanket on the couch, and listen to the rain outside. In the distance, I swear I can hear thunder. As if in response, a feeling like crawling electricity bites across my skin.

Every day, it gets easier and easier to feel it; that energy in me, I mean. I think about how easy it was to let out some lightning in the courtroom. How did I look, I wonder?

Blue sparks crackle out of my fingers; the popping almost seems to echo. It's strange how graceful it looks. I wonder if I, playing the broken girl, looked mesmerized when showing off my pretty curse.

I think about Divine again, how, perhaps, this is how he wanted me before, and I feel like shrinking. When he dies, perhaps I will feel at peace. It may be easier for me to get over him starting next week, once he's dead.

From the desk, my phone starts to buzz. Who the hell is calling me this late?

The caller ID says Aki, and immediately I'm relieved to hear from her. Is she having trouble sleeping, too?

When I pick up, though, it's just—breathing.

"Aki?" I ask warily.

The line goes dead.

That was… not normal.

I dial her number again. It goes straight to voicemail. My heart thuds. Did she dial me while sleeping, or something? Fall asleep with her phone on hand?

I take to pacing around the living room, my fingers curling and uncurling around my mug. The apartment remains peaceful, but it does nothing to sooth my unease.

I wait a half hour, and dial again. Voicemail _again_. I send a text.

 **Silvan Levine:** _hey are u ok_

 **Silvan Levine:** _just. bein dumb and anxious_

 **Silvan Levine:** _im so so sorry im gonna be bothering u until i hear back_

 **Silvan Levine:** _im sorry im like this i hope ur ok n u just butt dialed me or sm shit_

 **Silvan Levine:** _my b dude im so sorry im just real worried_

Someone knocks on the door and it scares the absolute _shit_ out of me.

Warily, I cross the room, unbolt the door, and peer outside.

"Silvan?" Mikage's voice says.

I take a second to process. Then I open the door wider. "What… are you doing here?"

"May I come in?"

Once inside, she sets her raincoat down and paces around the couch. I turn on another lamp for more light.

"You look dressed for work," I say.

She looks at me, lips pressed together. "Will you sit down with me?"

"What's going on?"

She puts her hands on my shoulders and sits down with me on the couch. I think I know what she's going to say, even before she sets her face in a stony expression and puts her hand on top of mine.

"They were transporting Divine from the Detention Center to the Holding Center for his final processing at the Bureau HQ earlier this evening," she begins, very slowly. "And… And the transport was wrecked, somehow."

"Please say he died in the wreck," I whisper, even though I know that's not what she's here to tell me. "Please don't do this to me."

She… She looks like she's going to cry. "He was the only survivor."

"And you lost him. Didn't you?"

"The fifty block radius around the area the transport crashed in is on lockdown until we find him."

"You _lost_ him."

"We have it under control."

"Then why did you _tell_ me?"

"I…" she breathes in deeply. "I thought you should know. I wouldn't have knocked had all the lights been off."

"...are you going to go tell Aki?"

"I would have, but her neighborhood is in the quarantined area. I told Ushio to go let her and her family know."

"...please leave my house."

"I'm sorry, Silvan."

" _Please_."

Mikage picks up her coat. "Just. Take it easy. Stay inside. We have it under control. Okay?"

I don't say anything; once she's gone, I get up to bolt the door, feeling like my heart has settled in the pit of my stomach.

He probably did it. Wrecked the truck. They were stupid and didn't put enough stabilizers on him, or something, and he did _something_ to set himself free. I think back to that fear I saw in him in the courtroom, his angry burst of flame, and I think that it would make sense that Divine fears death. It makes me feel a little better about them killing him, then.

If they get him back to go through with it.

The thought of Divine escaping and the Bureau never catching him again makes my skin crawl. I'd be looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life. I would never sleep again. Perhaps Aki and I would have to vanish somewhere to ensure that he never came back for us.

 _That_ thought hits me harder than the first one. He could come here. Does he know where I live? Not that it would be difficult to figure out.

And in that horrible stroke of fear that gives me, I decide to call Aki one more time.

Voicemail. Again.

We shared our locations with each other in the Teatime Team group chat a while ago. Just to be sure, just to be safe… I check it.

It takes a second to load, and when it does, I see her last registered location, a half an hour ago: somewhere downtown.

Something cold closes around my heart.

Before I know it, I'm on the floor, fingernails pressed in to my palms, and I'm trying hard not to start dry-heaving. I try to focus on the sound of the rain. I curl and uncurl my hands to put any sense of movement back into them; to keep a handle on myself.

I know he knows where Aki lives. Her parents never moved; not at any point after Aki joined Arcadia. Is it possible he's already gone after her? Is it possible he's coming for me next?

Am I the only person that knows?

I could go interrupt my brother. He could help. Or I could go run across the square and bang on Crow's door until he answers. He'd believe me.

I'm thinking about all of the times no one has been enough. The elevator all those months ago, in Satellite, even earlier today. All of the times when no one was enough to stop him except me. I think the common thread between Crow and Evan is that both of them would tell me to let the Bureau handle it; both of them would be against me leaving the apartment.

The Bureau lost him; the Bureau can't handle him. Especially not if, by some horrible stroke of bad luck, he did go get Aki.

I lie down on the floor and just _cry_. This isn't a matter of 'should I do it' or not. This is a matter of who can stop him. And right now, I think that might only be me.

I'm still feeling lethargic, broken, and sorry for myself when I scurry upstairs to change out of my pajamas. I put on thick, warm clothing and my long raincoat. All black; the less I'm seen, the better.

The rain still bites at me on my ride downtown. With my phone stowed under my jacket, I find my way to Aki's last location and park my duel runner in an alley out of the storm. Before I start toward what could be the worst mistake of my life, I dial 119.

" _Hello, you've reached the Security emergency line. To whom am I speaking?_ "

"My name is Silvan," I say. "Right now, I'm on the corner of Avenue One and Market Street. I know about the crashed Bureau transport. The suspect is very likely far outside your current quarantine zone. I need you to send your officers here instead."

" _Where is this information coming from?_ "

"My friend and I were key witnesses in the suspect's trial earlier today, and her phone is somewhere in my current vicinity. I understand that it's your job to ask questions, but I need you to send people here immediately."

" _Is this Silvan Levine, of 510 Tower Circle?_ "

"Yes. Send people right now."

" _Miss, stay where you are. If the suspect is in your vicinity, do not engage. He is to be considered armed and dangerous._ "

So am I. "Send people _now_."

I hang up and stuff my phone in my pocket. And, in perhaps the only form of defense I can wield, I imagine that I am very small and quiet and folded in upon myself, and I Hide.

With my screen brightness turned all the way down, I peek at Aki's location marker and creep forward, feeling the pressure build in my chest and my head. It feels like the boulders of energy I'm carrying in my bones are rising up to press against my skull until it cracks.

That's when I stumble upon Aki's phone, abandoned on the pavement. I pick it up to look at it, to make sure, but it's definitely hers—red phone case, strawberry charm, and all.

I think I've hit a dead end, until I slide the phone into my pocket and I hear shuffling. A crash. A familiar voice breathing a curse.

Fear tightens my muscles. Something slithers down from my nose. I press the heel of my hand against it and peer into the next street.

First, I see Aki. She's standing. Very, _starkly_ still. So still I know immediately that it isn't natural.

Then I see Divine. He looks to have been trying to go through some of the garbage cans, and when I see that his hands are still cuffed, I figure he must be foraging for something to get them open with.

He curses again. Kicks the trash can. He whirls around, sets his eyes on Aki, and mutters, "Yes, maybe I can… Open these for me, dear."

Aki raises both of her hands daintily, resting them on the cuffs, and they begin to melt off of him.

I've… never seen her Twist before. She's always said it was her least useful specialization.

I thought she said her powers had stopped answering her call?

The cuffs melt off of him and hit the ground in a soft lump. I'm too frozen to do anything; what if I hurt Aki? She's obviously not in control of herself.

Divine rubs at his wrists. "Lovely. Now, we'd better keep moving. I thought I felt something earlier."

I don't know how much longer I can keep this up. I can feel blood welling up and running down the back of my throat. And I can't just try to grab Aki and leave; that would start a chase. And now that I'm here, I can't let him get away. Not until Security arrives and can properly detain him. I should try to do _something_ to liberate Aki, though. I don't know what it is that Divine is doing, or how to break it.

I take a big, soft breath, and as I let it out, I Waste outward _hard_ and let up Hiding. Blood gushes out my nose. Divine careens backward into a metal bin.

Aki whirls; her eyes are bottomless and empty. She looks, seeing something that isn't me, and suddenly crumples. I beeline for her, pulling her up into my arms, holding her in against my chest as I prepare for Divine to turn and face me.

"Look at you," he says, heaving himself up out of the garbage. "You're… stronger than I'd imagined you could be."

"Do _not_ come near us," I say. "Stay where you are."

He laughs. "So demanding."

"I am not afraid of you. If you get near us, I will hurt you."

"Oh, I believe it." He stands there smiling with his arms outstretched, as if asking to be embraced. "I'm sorry it had to come to that. I never meant to instill fear in you."

"Shut up. I'm not about to start believing your self-preservation bullshit."

"It's the truth. I had such high standards for you, and I'm sorry. It was my intention to make you stronger, to make you able to carry the weights of your gifts, but I did it wrong. I hurt you immensely, and for that I am truly sorry."

"First of all," I say, "even if you actually _were_ sorry, you wouldn't have waited until now to say it. Being _sorry_ constitutes understanding what you did wrong. It constitutes change. Not kidnapping your old prodigy and mind-controlling her to go with you, you absolute fucking waste of oxygen."

"Not mind control." He flexes his fingers. "It's called Suggestion. And it wouldn't work if there wasn't some part of the subject that wanted it to happen."

"You're still a fucking liar."

"It's the truth, I'm afraid." There's a smile in his voice now. "That's why it rarely ever worked on you."

A chill creeps down my spine. I hold Aki tighter. "So, what's the hair-brained scheme here? Take her and leave?"

"Only for a little ways," he says. "The two of you were very zealous in the courtroom; I wouldn't be able to take _you_ along at all. Aki, I would have to keep under my Suggestion for perhaps the rest of our lives. Quite a loss, really. But she would have made a wonderful bargaining chip."

"For what? For them to just let you walk free?"

"Obviously. I've lived this long just outside the reach of the law. Had it not been for celestial input, I'd still be outside its reach."

"You deserve to be in a jail cell for the rest of your life."

"And yet, you helped to have me killed?"

"At this point? There's no difference."

"Oh, yes there is. I would rather spend the rest of my life running than die tomorrow."

"And I would rather you spend _at least_ the time that I spent, trapped the way I was. But if this is what I'm able to get, I'll take it."

Aki shifts, seemingly at the sound of my voice. "...Silvan?"

"It's okay," I say, moving my elbow to support her head. "Are you here? Is it you?"

"I… I can't believe you came." Her voice starts to wobble. "I-I tried to call you."

"I know."

"I tried to break out."

I turn my eyes on Divine. "If you even think about doing that to her again, I will hurt you. Do you understand?"

"It isn't as if I could try again," he scoffs. "She's too hysterical, now."

I hold Aki closer. She looks at me, but her eyes reel. Whatever he did to her, his 'Suggestion'… it really took her out of it. I need to stall until she feels at least a little more like herself. Until someone sends Security over here, like I told them to.

"I have questions," I say. "I want to know why."

His jaw tightens. "Why, _what_?"

"Why did you do all of this? Why was this the solution?"

Divine scoffs. "You were in that courtroom––you know why."

"You expect me to believe that drivel you fed to Seria? That you're supposed to be some bullshit tragic hero?"

"I was wronged by everyone I ever cared about, and for that, I wanted to be strong. That's all there is to it."

"I don't believe that you just _showed someone_ your abilities and scared the shit out of them. I know you. I know your style. Don't expect me to buy that you weren't as sadistic as a teen."

He shakes his head. "Not everyone has such accepting colleagues."

"Not every psychic tries to set their colleagues on _fire_ ," I say. "Or, you know. Steal their fucking children."

"You are mine," he responds. "You were always mine, and you know it."

"I am too good for you," I say, remembering that gyrating spirit world from last summer. "I've met my mother, and she's long denounced you. I am not yours."

"You can say that until you begin to believe it, whatever makes you feel better. But, Cipher, I _made_ you. Without me, you would not be who you are today."

"You're right. But I think I'd be better."

"Oh?"

I curl my lip. "Had you never entered my life, I think I'd be even more powerful."

"So you admit I made you strong."

"You never made me anything but afraid. My mother's power made me strong. You had nothing to do with it."

"Now, you know I'd rather not use that little burst of electricity against you."

Heat bubbles up in my stomach. "You already did."

"Incredible, how ungrateful you are for all I gave you."

I choke down one of _several_ replies. I have to change the subject before I lose it. Before I make some mistake and let him get away. "Where are my memories? What happened to them?"

"Gone."

"I know. I've long accepted that. But I want to know where they went."

"You were young. Moldable." He picks at his nails. "I had to do something to make you stop fighting me." He wrenches up the long sleeve of his black prisoner's coveralls: a whirling burn scar sits red and purple upon his skin, never quite healed. It dawns on me that I've never seen his hands uncovered, his skin exposed.

And there's a moment in between when I see them and my realization that the burns look like small, squeezing hands.

"I think you knew you held your mother's gift before I did. You were very eager to use it." He rolls his sleeve down. "A bit of sedative, to keep you from burning me alive. Then, once we reached the city, I had other ways to make sure you didn't remember how to do it again. The cleaner the slate, the better, anyways. I could start you fresh."

Bile creeps up in my throat again, horror and anger and disbelief, but there's some sick satisfaction somewhere in there. There's proof that I existed before Arcadia—proof that I fought back. Proof that I would not be taken without a fight. And I imprinted it on him the day we first met.

An odd sense of calm settles over me. "What really got you kicked out of uni? Whose life did you fuck up?"

"Is it so impossible to believe that my intentions were and are good?"

"Your intentions mean nothing in regards to your impact. You have to know that."

"All I did was show my gift. That was all they needed—they feared my power, just the way they should have, is what I see now. It was their choice to ruin my life, and for that, I wanted the world to know just who it was dealing with. Every disgusting, bigoted common person would see just how powerful our kind was."

"You're right, a lot of common people are bigots," I say. "But that doesn't mean you can pick one out on the street and hurt them. There are other ways to handle that. There are other ways to handle yourself than kidnapping and murdering a bunch of fucking children."

Something zooms over us. Rain careens down and hits me, even though I'm crouched under an awning. It sounded like a helicopter.

A couple seconds later, a big lamp turns on and flashes through the alley. It reels around for a moment, like someone is righting their aim, and then it settles on us.

Security, I pray. It can't be anyone else.

Divine shields his eyes, as if looking up at the sun, and then looks at me: eyes wide, like a deer in the headlights.

"No," he says, voice low and shaky. "No. I won't die here. I won't."

"The jury said 'guilty'," I retort. "Yes you will."

"I won't! I won't, I won't, I WON'T!"

Fire flashes forward from his hands. The rain doesn't do much to it; I heave Aki up, trying to turn my back to Internalize and protect her, and my feet fly out from under me. I slide upward fast, trying to regain my footing, and then Divine's much closer—and he's got his arm hooked around Aki's neck.

I rise slowly, hands out, palms up. I can't do anything while he has Aki. Heavy pressure rises in my stomach, my throat. What if he hurts her? Her eyes are still reeling, still unfocused, but her floppy arms still move. Her hands pull weakly at his arm.

He's choking her. Is he choking her?

"Put her down," I say hollowly. "Put her down _now_."

"You called them here," Divine rambles, voice near-hysterical. "Tell them to go away. Tell them to let me go."

"I'm not going to do that."

"They've brainwashed you. Those common Signers, Levine's wretched boy… They ruined you."

"You ruined me."

"You were so close to being perfect! All you had to do was let yourself feel, and you would have been perfect! I would have given you anything, and now you're just another failure!"

"You're lying to me," I say. "I know you. You know that I do. You put all your hopes in Aki, you gave her everything and gave me a backburner. You tried to kill me more than once."

"I knew you would survive!" he exclaims. "One day, it would all come pouring out! Those gifts have a floor, it was only a matter of time before I reached yours!"

"I don't," I say, even though I don't know if I'm telling the truth. "I Internalized a tornado the other day. I'm more powerful than you know."

I don't know if it's the rain, or if he's, like… _crying_?

Suddenly, Aki screams. It's choked off, though, breathy. She's back to life, all of a sudden. Awake. She claws at Divine, and when he brings his arm in tighter, she jerks. I cry out.

"You know what?!" I have to push myself to keep going, as I reach a shaky hand in Aki's direction. One of her hands still claws at him. The other grabs, _grasps_ , at the air, as if trying to call something. Power. Energy that may never come. "You don't have any excuses! You're not allowed to play victim! Yes, sometimes people are afraid! Or they don't like you, for whatever fucking reason! It doesn't have to be your fault, you don't have to give them any reason to hate you other than their own fucking problem! Other people can do and think what they want, but they—they can't tell you what to do! The only person who can do that is you!"

Aki's beginning to struggle less and less. My heart is pounding.

"Your life didn't get ruined because of anyone else but you!" I say. "You picked to get angry and plan a personal vendetta against every common person there is! _You_ did that! You wanted to help the world, and now all you want to do is destroy it! That wasn't anyone else's decision but yours!"

"What a nice sentiment!" He exclaims. "What world do you live in where it actually holds weight? People hate us, and they always will unless someone evens the playing field!"

"Not unless we prove them wrong! And building an army, killing people, isn't the way to do that! I'm more powerful than you could ever hope to be, and I'm not building on hate!" I clench my fists. What words, to come from me. _I'm more powerful than you._ "You know exactly what world I live in! You tried to ruin my life, and I'm trying to fix it!"

"I protected all of you from what I endured!"

"You're insane! And you're a murderer! Everything you 'endured', you brought on yourself!"

"Just let me leave!" Divine roars. "Isn't that what you want?!"

"Put her _down_ ," I demand.

"Or what?" His voice is becoming hysterical. "I'm not going to die today. _Silvan_."

"You don't get to call me by that name," I say. "You took it from me, you don't get to use it!"

"Well then, _Cipher_ , call them off, and I let Aki live to breathe another day."

I'm running out of options. And time. "How about I just _make_ you put her down?"

"I'm not afraid of you."

" _You fucking should be_."

Aki's mouthing my name now. It's all she can manage.

"Divine," I demand. "Put her down!"

"Call them off!"

"No one is going to let you go!"

"Then you'll have to take responsibility for what's left of Aki!"

I stop myself before I can call his bluff. Will he actually... try it? Is he that stupid? Or—or what? I'm running out of ideas. I have no time.

I lunge toward him, and by some miracle I manage to tackle both of them to the ground. Divine lets go and Aki scrambles away from us, gasping for breath.

"Silvan," she's saying in between breaths.

His arms are underneath my knees, and my hand tingles—I realize that I punched him. _I punched Divine_.

Aki pulls me backward, off of him, and I heave her, wobbling, to her feet. If I can somehow distract him until Aki can get away... maybe one of us can disarm him. Long enough for Ushio to come in and detain him. The helicopter buzzes angrily above us, that spotlight still following Divine.

He sprays a colorful tendril of fire toward us; I put my back to him and it curls around me, searing my skin, and I can feel its unbearable warmth down to my fingertips as I Internalize it.

The fire keeps coming, though, and I keep him at my back until I can almost hear my skin sizzling, but I absorb it all. I absorb it like eight years of electricity, as if that well in me had no bottom.

"Silvan!" Aki shoves me down as a garbage can comes sailing over our heads, landing a few feet behind us with the loud crash.

Then Divine's there, above us again, fire reflecting in his eyes as he examines the two of us at his feet.

"You're both nothing. You're a disappointment." His lip curls. "I wasted so much on you."

The first thing I see is a spiral of fire toward Aki—too much flame, too hot, I can already feel my skin blistering.

He hurt her, he hurt me—how long will history keep repeating itself? How long will he run free if he kills us here? Can Ushio, can the Securities, even stop him if I don't?

How do you stop someone so liberal with their power?

Then I'm on my feet—and it happens so fast.

I can see the blinding flash of the lightning, of the sizzling blue electricity draining from me. Everything is static and thunder, and something like this scared him off once before, but it wasn't this. This is in tenfold.

Next thing I know, I'm sitting on the ground. Aki has her arms around me—I feel every hair on me standing on end, and my hands are shaking uncontrollably from... something. I don't know.

"It's okay," I hear her murmuring, when my ears start to work again. "It's okay, it's okay."

What happened? Where is Divine? Are we safe? What's going on?

"We... we have to file this."

That's Ushio's voice.

"She... she was protecting us, Ushio, you don't mean—"

"He was... supposed to die anyways. I mean... Izayoi, I still need to report this. We have to take you two in."

"What?" I breathe. "What? Where's... Divine...?"

"Can you stand?" Aki asks. "Here, let me help you."

"What happened?" I say again.

"Christ," Ushio exhales. "I have to take you down to the Headquarters, Levine. We have to file a report."

"A-Are we okay?" I breathe. "Did you get him?"

"Kid... _you_ got him," Ushio says. "That was more than enough electricity to fry someone."

"What?" I ask hollowly.

"It's okay," Aki keeps saying. "It was in self defense, if you hadn't, he would have..."

"Oh," I breathe. "I... I killed him."

"Yeah," Ushio says. "Yeah, you did."

\- PART II - ENDLESS SUMMER AFTERNOON - _End._


	55. A Short Pier

\- PART 3 - AND MILES TO GO BEFORE I SLEEP -

The sound of the television's dull in my ears, but I can still hear it. I can still hear the news anchors and the inflection in their voices: some depleted hunger for heated conversation.

".. _.the elusive proprietor of the infamous Arcadia_ _Movement, found dead by Security after an extensive manhunt early Thursday morning, was exposed in court by defendants last Wednesday. Previously sealed Bureau documents have now been released to the public, shedding light on many of the gruesome human experiments performed just beneath our noses_."

My leg bounces almost faster than I can manage, now. I shut my eyes. Try not to listen.

" _Security has given word that they have closed investigation on the matter, ruling his sudden death as a suicide_."

"Silvan?"

I snap my head up. Audrey looks at me for a long moment, then reaches for the TV remote and turns it off. "Sorry I made you wait. Come on in."

I follow her down the hall, hands pinned at my sides. I step into her office. She shuts the door. I sink down onto the couch. I don't look until I hear her pen click, and I know it's time to pour it all out.

"How are you doing? You sounded very impatient on the phone."

"Fine."

"Remember our conversation about emotional real estate?"

"Yes."

"Okay. I'm going to ask you again. How are you doing?"

I pinch the fabric of my pants and pin my eyes on my sneakers. "Bad." A pause. "Is it that obvious?"

"You're in pajamas. And you look like you've slept less than usual."

"...yep."

Audrey adjusts in her seat. "...was the trial that terrible for you?"

"It was nothing."

"Really?"

"He tried to spook me, and I wouldn't let him."

"Good, good."

"They found him guilty."

"I heard."

"And then the Bureau lost him in transport."

"I heard that, too."

"And then I killed him."

There's a pause. I don't look up. I hear Audrey's pen hit the carpet.

"...what?"

"I… I did it. It was me."

She flounders for a moment, mouth agape. "...he killed himself."

"No."

"...can you tell me about it?"

"I was up late, and Aki tried to call me, and not long after that someone from the Bureau that I know showed up at my door and told me the transport crashed… Aki shares her location with me, so she wasn't at home, it turns out he had taken her, and I… I just…" I squeeze my hands into fists. "I lost control."

Audrey puts her clipboard on the floor—near my feet, so I can see it. I hear her chair creak as she leans toward me. A conversation, now. Unrecorded. "Tell me how you lost control."

"He just… he was attacking us. He was going to kill us. And before I knew it, I was all… electric."

"So you killed him in self defense." She pauses. "He was… he was already going to die, Silvan. They were literally transporting him to the death row facility."

"That's what the Bureau said."

"Are they protecting you?"

I shift uncomfortably.

"Legally, I can't share anything you share with me," Audrey says. "You know that. You can tell me."

"Yes."

"Yes?"

"...My friends, in the Bureau, they… they vouched for me. They archived their report and said they wouldn't punish me because of the verdict. Said I'd saved them the trouble."

"Well. Good. 19 is young, Silvan, you're still a child. I wouldn't want a child in a media juggernaut like that."

"I feel numb," I say. "He wanted this. He wanted me to be like this."

"He was going to kill you. You said so yourself."

"Yes, but…" I trail off.

Audrey scoots her chair in a little more. "But what?"

"There should have been another way." I swallow a thickness in my throat. "It wasn't supposed to be like this."

"You have to accept that there was nothing else you could have done, Silvan. Divine was dangerous and evil. He was going to kill you. Sometimes, fighting back first is the right thing to do."

I shake my head. "It's not the same."

"This doesn't make you like him, Silvan."

"Doesn't it?" My voice breaks. "Even with what he did, even with who he was… I tried to be angry in a different way. I tried to let someone else handle it. I tried to be satisfied with death instead of locking him in a box forever. But… if—if I kill him, then aren't I just as bad as he is?"

Audrey takes a long inhale. "No. No, that isn't even remotely the same." She scrambles to pick up her clipboard again, her pen, and then starts to scribble something. "We've had this conversation before. Remember? It's false equivalency." Audrey turns her clipboard, and shows me the little line diagram she's drawn. "Goodness is not a binary, Silvan. One subjectively 'bad' deed does not make you equivalent to someone like Divine."

"I—I can't rationalize it that way, Aud. I don't know what I was feeling, or, or if I even consciously made the decision… all I know for sure is that it happened. And now I don't know what I'm supposed to do."

"Does anybody know that you're here?"

"...no," I say. "But I had to talk to someone."

"While I'm glad that your first reaction was to go to therapy," Audrey says, "have you spoken to anyone else about this?"

"I––no. Aki hasn't spoken to me. I can't talk to Evan about it without feeling like I'm going to spiral."

"What about Yusei?"

"He's out of the country. And I––I don't know if I'd want to try and unpack this with him. I don't know if I'm capable of unpacking it at all."

"I want you to try. Walk me through what happened. Tell me what you remember."

I recline on the couch, hands folded over my stomach. As I recount that night, the way my hands felt… and the blackness that set in, the only thing keeping me from _truly_ remembering what it was like to kill Divine… I feel much like the first time I lied on this couch, eighteen, much smaller, much more afraid.

I am still very, very afraid.

When I am done pouring it out, Audrey sits and ruminates for a long time. I'm packing myself back in for the day, and she tells me to go talk to Aki––that she was there, that she knows. That Aki is the best person for me to talk to right now.

It's not like I don't agree with her. It's just that part of me believes that Aki doesn't want to talk to me. And why would she? She doesn't need my baggage right there alongside her own.

And yet, I drive there, to her house, and I end up outside her door, standing by myself in my big sweatpants and loose hair and wanting to cry. I can't bring myself to go knock. What if her parents answer? Will I have to talk to them? Do they even know all of what happened?

It seems I don't have to, though; the door cracks open, and as I stumble closer to the doorstep, I can see Aki looking with big eyes. She opens the door wider. She's wrapped in a big fluffy blanket.

"Silvan," she says, whispered, barely a greeting.

"Are you okay?" I ask. "...can… Can I come in?"

"Am I okay?" Aki opens the door wider, still. "I… I don't know. What about you?"

"I don't know either."

Wordlessly, she steps out of the threshold so that I can come in. The house is dark and silent. Empty. I take off my shoes by the mat and pad after her, toward the kitchen.

"Where's your mom?"

"Doing something. I don't know." She breathes out slowly. "I told her I'd be okay by myself."

"...really?"

"I know, and she believed me."

"Neither of us look exactly like we don't need help, I think."

"Yeah." Her shoulders shiver with what I think might be part of a laugh. "...how do you feel?"

"...lighter."

"I see." She doesn't speak again until we reach the kitchen. The kitchen counter is littered with tissues, rose petals, broken flower stems, and several round mugs of what I assume is tea. Aki folds her hands around a mug close to her and lifts it to her lips. "What did it feel like?"

"...I can't remember."

"No?"

"No." I ball up my hands. "I'm good at blocking things out, I guess."

"It was what I woke up to," she says, after a second. "The last time he did––that to me, it felt kind of different. Like this safe, syrupy sleep. I could've lied down forever, back then, in Satellite. This was––jarring. I felt delirious. I was still conscious, still looking through my own eyes, but, sort of… I don't know. Drunk. Like I could feel and see and hear and remember everything, and I had a full, complete sense of what was right and wrong, but my hands still did things I told them not to. He––He dug down deep into me, Silvan, and pulled out psychic energy I haven't used in years. Energy I can't even access right now, no matter how hard I try."

"I'm sorry," I whisper.

"I wanted to be the one to do it." She squeezes her eyes shut. "Is that horrible to say? I wish it was me who had killed him. I was looking forward to being there and watching him die. It was going to be the next best thing to wielding the syringe myself."

"I'm sorry," I say again.

"No, I…" she shakes her head. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to pour this on you. I haven't talked to my parents about it. I haven't really talked to anyone about it."

"...I literally came here on my way back from therapy."

"Yeah, that's a good plan." She slumps onto a barstool by the kitchen island. Her blanket tumbles down to the floor. "I'm––I'm not a killer, Silvan."

My stomach plummets. Where is this conversation going?

"I've never wanted to kill anyone before. But Divine was in my head twice, and there was nothing I could do about it. I… I can carry some hefty grudges, Silvan. And I do. You know that. But I've never wanted revenge this badly."

"...I know."

"Do you?"

"I wanted him to rot." I bend to pick up the blanket and coil it up in my arms. "I wanted him to sit in a prison cell for the time I sat in Arcadia, and then some. I wanted him to die old and withered and alone and without anything or anyone to his name. I wanted his bones to turn to dust in prison."

"...that's fair of you to want."

"Don't confuse my priorities, here. I wanted him dead, too. I just… wanted it to be later. And I didn't want it to be me."

"I… I know. Can I admit something to you, though?"

"What?" I sink onto the barstool across from her.

"I was… there. Well, not fully there, but there. I saw you, when––when it happened. I could see you shut off."

"...you could?"

"It was like you'd left your body," she says. "You stood up, walked right through the fire, put your hand on him, and it was all over. I don't know how much electricity it was, how long you fired it off, but… I think he convulsed two or three times before he just stopped moving."

Bile rises in my throat.

"When you put him down, and you turned and looked at me, I just… I saw nothing. You were off somewhere else. You just sort of sat down, and I held you, and the next thing I knew, you were asking me what had happened."

"Why are you telling me this?" I say.

"I want to know how you do it," Aki says plainly. "If you even know how."

"How what?"

"How you can just… shut yourself off. I can't do that. I can't just forget. I can't just stop feeling. I don't––I don't have another place to go, if you know what I mean."

"I––I… I can't. I can't just turn it on."

"Well, I can't just stop being angry."

"Then we're both just going to have to live with ourselves, won't we?"

"You don't have to snap at me."

"What do you want me to say?" I put my nose into the blanket. "You're chastising me. Like you're––like you're angry at me. I've already told you, I didn't want this. I didn't want to kill anyone!"

"Well. I am angry at you. Irrationally, but I am."

"I didn't take anything away from you," I say. "Before you accuse me of that, I went out there to save you. I went just for you, not for anything else."

"I know."

"Then why?"

"I told you, the anger is… irrational." She balls up her fists and sets her eyes on her mug. Focusing. Trying to do something to it. Break it, maybe. But it stays there, still and whole, and Aki's shoulders slump. "You had to come rescue me. You got to make the killing blow. Part of me knows that you got Arcadia worse than I did, and yet…"

"And yet?"

"You're still standing," she says. "You can shut it all out. And you're more powerful than ever."

"My life and how I function," I say slowly, "is not better. I am not better, Aki. I'm different and I feel so much worse, and I don't understand why the fuck you think that me being fucked over the way that I am is something that you can be jealous of."

"Well, I don't know how I'm supposed to feel."

"Not perfect, that's for sure. And I know that's a tall fucking order, but you'd better start on it now."

She peers up at me, and I can almost feel the words she's going to say, whatever argument we're about to dive into, bubbling back—then the doorbell rings.

Aki bounces up. Eyes still pinned to me, she starts out of the kitchen. When she's out of the room, I put my face in the blanket and try to keep level breathing. I try to keep a handle on myself.

From the foyer, there's a lot of hushed talking. I stay quiet, try to listen, for a long moment, until I start to hear cellophane rustling and I decide I'm too curious to wait. I get up, dragging Aki's blanket with me, and head to the front door.

Aki's standing there, startled, door in one hand, and a big bouquet of red roses in the other. Crow stands in the threshold, and when he sees me, his eyes nearly pop out of his head.

"Silvan!" he blurts. "Are… I haven't seen you since… Are you okay?"

I kinda shrug. "I mean."

"Ah… Sorry…"

Aki, bouquet of flowers crushed against her chest, says, "Come on in. You don't have to stand out there by yourself. And you certainly didn't have to bring these."

"Well. I wanted to."

Aki puts her nose in the flowers, then goes back into the kitchen. I stay with Crow as he wrestles his boots off.

"How long have, um." I pause, unsure how to finish. "...you… guys…?"

"I'm not really sure," he answers. "To be honest, I'm not sure we're actually, like. Anything."

"Are you like. Sleeping together?"

"Um, uh… no. Just like. Hanging out. Talking. Texting a bunch."

"Okay. So, just taking it slow? Maybe?"

He bounces up off of the floor and claps dirt off of his hands. "I'll let you know whenever I know."

I follow him sheepishly into the kitchen. Well, I don't know what's happening at all anymore.

Aki's already filled up a vase with water, set the flowers in, and is meticulously adjusting their placement.

Crow says, "Well, see? They're a good distraction, I'm glad I brought them."

Aki puffs, sending her loose bangs whirling. "...thank you."

Crow grins. "Aw. I'm touched."

Aki fights back a smile and says, "Don't push your luck."

Immediately, I feel like I'm intruding.

"Maybe I should go," I say. Aki and Crow both turn to look at me.

"But I just got here," Crow says.

"Actually," Aki chimes, voice suddenly a little hoarse, "I think that's a good idea."

I know I suggested it, but… I'm kind of shocked. Crow, even, throws a surprised look in Aki's direction. I barely remember scrambling out the door. Next thing I know, I'm on the sidewalk in front of the mailbox.

I don't know what to do about this. About Aki. How am I supposed to feel? She's angry at me for what, for––for saving her life? For committing a murder I didn't want to commit?

This is my pattern, with Aki. We butt heads because our emotions conflict. Because a situation belongs to the both of us, but it is not big enough to share. Our trauma has always intertwined this way, and inevitably, it has always led to these annoying little short-term fallouts. This one, though… This one bothers me more than the rest.

I know it's because she feels powerless. I know it's because she's used to being the powerful one––and me being the powerless. Our dynamic has always existed within those lines, that she and her boisterous, emotional personality show off this air of power and I, with all my suppressed bitterness and insistent, shaking hands, just. Don't.

I can't force myself to be angry with her, not as angry as I've lately been with myself, but… I know that I don't deserve this. Neither does she, of course, but it's not something I know I can apologize for. And though I can't blame what I did to Divine on her, not wholeheartedly, I can't bring myself to blame me, either. Not this time.

I slide onto my duel runner and drive. Where, I don't know. I wander for a while until the wind has eaten through my clothing and I'm so cold that I can't stop shivering.

When I go home, Evan is there, on the couch, conversing about something with Kiryu. I open the door and he darts to his feet. He looks like he hasn't slept in a while.

"H-Hey," he stammers. "Hey. You weren't in your room, so I was getting worried…"

"I just went for a drive," I tell him.

He's silent as I pass, climb up into the loft, and straight into bed. I stay there, on top of the blanket, still in my chilled clothes, unmoving, for a while until my door creaks open. The bed bends beneath my brother's weight, and I know it's him, because I recognize his sigh as he starts to help me take my shoes off.

"Can you talk to me?" he asks. "Please?"

"I went to see Audrey today."

"Okay. That's good."

"She didn't really have a ton to tell me, beyond the usual, but she told me to go see Aki."

"And did you?"

"Yes. I wish I hadn't."

He rubs my shoulder. "What happened?"

"She's––mad at me."

"Mad at you? Why?"

"I don't know." My voice breaks. "She's, I mean… She's mad at me because she wanted to do it."

"Silvan, you have to be more specific."

"I went out that night to help her," I hear myself say. "And she's mad at me for saving her. For killing him. Because she wanted to do it."

"I––I'm sorry, I'm confused."

"Feels like all of us are."

"Silvan, I…" He sighs hard. "How do I help you? How do I fix this?"

"I don't know."

"Can you try and talk to me? Try and… I don't know. Tell me how you feel?"

"I don't––know how."

"Can you try?"

"I'm…" I search for the words. "Angry. And sad. And… I don't know what else."

"Why are you angry?"

"I'm––Audrey says I'm not like him, that one kill doesn't make me like him––"

"She's right," Evan interjects.

"––but I feel like doing it finally made me who he wanted me to be."

"Silvan, you know that's not true."

"Yes it is," I whisper. "Because I don't remember doing it, I don't… remember making the decision. But I remember what it felt like."

"And what did it feel like?"

"Good," I admit, my voice cracking barely above a murmur. "I felt powerful. And it was good."

"Wanting to feel powerful after you've always felt powerless doesn't make you like Divine," Evan says. "Trust me on that."

"How do you know?"

"Divine didn't just like being powerful. He liked being feared. He liked being in control, and not just of himself. And I think he feared death because of that––because dying could take all of that away from him."

"I wanted to be powerful, and now I am," I say. "How does that make me any different?"

"I know you, Silvan. I know that you've never wanted to be powerful. I know that you pretended not to be for eight whole years because you were afraid of what Divine would turn you into. And now that that influence is gone, now that he is gone, I don't think it's possible for you to be like him. Especially not if you start to love what you're capable of."

"I––don't know how."

"I think you do," he says. "I think you do love it. Your power. You love finally feeling in control. I've seen it. And I don't think that's a sign of Divine's influence. I think that's a sign of him finally starting to leave you."

"I… I…"

"Also? Forgive me for being the morally-grey at a bad time, but I don't think it's at all bad that you killed Divine. I'm proud of you for fighting back. You're the only one I know of that ever could."

Part of me knows this. Part of me knows that I'm probably the only one who could have stopped him. But there's no reason for me to like that.

"And I think Aki––it's obvious that she's just. I don't know. Jealous? But I know she's not malicious. I don't think she's really capable of that, so I'm really feeling incapable of believing that she actively wanted to be the one to kill Divine. Anyone could see the dynamic that the two of you have, and I've seen it evolve. I think she's not used to being the powerless one, and it drives her up a wall. That's Divine's fault, too, so. I wouldn't hold it against her."

"I don't," I admit. "I… can't."

"She's got her own demons to deal with," he says. "I think… it might be good for you to two to deal with them on your own. You know I'm here for you no matter what. And Kiryu is bad at talking, but he's here, too."

"I know."

"Can I hug you?"

I draw myself up until I'm sitting and nestle into his shoulder. He puts both arms around me, pets my hair, and I listen to him breathe for a long time.

"Anything I can do right now?" Evan murmurs at last. "Anything you want that I can get or do?"

"I think I just––want to take a nap."

"Okay. I'm going to think about making dinner soon. Any requests?"

"Not right now. No."

"Okay. I'll come up and check on you in a bit, then. See if you've changed your mind." He kisses my forehead, and when he leaves, I feel cold again. I peel back my comforter and try to find a good, warm spot underneath, but no matter what I do I still feel like shivering.

I don't know how long it takes me to fall asleep––or how long I'm asleep. My dreams are all muddy, and when the sound of my door opening jolts me awake, I almost think I can still hear my mother calling from somewhere far away.

The door creaks, and I can hear the stark, sudden silence as the person in the threshold pauses. I rub my bleary, heavy eyes. "I don't know if I'm hungry yet, Ev," I whisper.

"I'm not Evan."

I crane my neck up toward him—Yusei. In my doorway, looking like a shadow out of my dreams.

"You're back," I say hollowly.

"We're back," he replies. "I was all ready to tell you about what happened on our trip—now I see that that's definitely not the most important thing right now."

"I—" I start, but tears start pouring down my cheeks, and I can't say any more words.

Yusei sits on the edge of my bed. "Am I allowed to hug you? Or is that not the best idea right now?"

I throw my arms around him in answer. I can feel his breath in my hair.

"Evan told me as much as he could," he whispers. "Aki's holed up, won't answer any calls. I assume Crow's with her, since I can't get ahold of him, either. Most of what we know is just... from Ushio."

"It happened so fast," I murmur. "I didn't even... I didn't realize what I was doing. I just saw him attacking us, and I... I went... and..."

"You don't have to explain yourself to me."

"I... know..."

"So why are you doing it?"

"I killed somebody," I breathe. "I still have to... to explain it to myself."

"You were protecting yourself. And it was Divine."

"I know..."

"Is the Bureau charging you with anything?"

"No," I manage. "But they... they were gonna kill him anyways. I'm not... in trouble. With the Bureau, I mean."

"Are you implying that you're in trouble with someone else?"

"I-I killed somebody."

"Okay, okay, I get it." He strokes my hair. "I'm sorry, Silvan."

"W-Why are you apologizing?"

"Because I'm just sorry. For everything. I can't say something stupid like 'it's okay' because it's not, so all I can do is say I'm sorry. The others and I are all here for you and Aki, and... we're going to do the best we can to get you through this. But you have to let me know how to help you."

"I don't even know," I admit. "I don't know what to do."

"...that's all right. You don't have to." His breath warms my scalp. "Do you want me to stay?"

"I-I don't know."

He doesn't say anything after that. We sit in the dark, both silent, both listening to nothing.

There, where he doesn't have to see, the tears continue to well up and spill over.


	56. Dilemma Of A Ghost

In my dream, she's calling for me. I'm standing on that bridge in the Satellite and trying to blink my way through how bright the sea of light under my feet is. When I step off the edge, I float, my hair suspended around my face as if I'm in a fairy tale. The air sets me down in that ocean of light like a soft feather. I sink into it like sleep.

The waves, the ground, whatever they are, pull and pull at my feet, and I'm looking through foggy eyes for any sign of her—following that voice. My tears are sparkly little beads, and they follow me, suspended, like bits of glass bouncing on top of water.

"Where are you?" I ask. "I can't see you."

Her voice is garbled, further and further away, no matter how hard I try or how fast I try to run. The ground keeps wrapping its fingers around my feet, and I can't hear her anymore. Only when the ground begins to swallow me up can I hear her asking for me, calling my name again, and I realize it could be that the fingers wrapped around my ankles belong to her.

"Hey. Hey, Silvan."

I didn't even realize I fell asleep—but I roll over into Yusei's hand and open my eyes to darkness. I know he's there, I feel his warmth, but I can't see him.

"Can you come somewhere with me?" He asks.

"...I don't want to go anywhere," I say sleepily.

"I know. But I want you to trust me on this. Can you get up? Get dressed?"

"Yusei—"

"Please?" His voice is soft. "For me?"

I breathe a huge sigh. It takes a lot of effort for me to get out of bed. In the dark, I fumble around for a change of clothes, and even I can barely see anything, so I don't really give a shit if Yusei's in my room while I'm switching clothes. It's only when I stumble out into the hallway that I realize he's been standing there, outside, waiting for me.

"Thank you for indulging me," he says. In the low light, I see him reach for me to brush my hair out of my face. It's a gesture that sends heat up my cheeks. "Come on."

"What time is it?" I say flatly.

"Late. It's all right. We're just going for a drive, if that's okay with you."

"Yusei, I really don't feel like driving right now."

"You don't have to." We come outside, and I find his duel runner parked there. He slips a red helmet onto my head. "Just hold on to me."

I cling to him as we speed down empty streets; I don't know where we're going, but I'm glad I'm with him. I'm glad he's back. I breathe in the wind going through his jacket and wish he had been there before I decided to go after Divine. Maybe he would've had a better idea. Maybe I could have avoided this.

There's a sense of security that I have with him that's—different than with anyone else. Different than with my brother, or anything. It's not like I feel like there are things I can tell him that I can't tell Evan. It's only that there's… I don't know. It's some kind of intimacy that's different than hugging my brother. Something bigger and warmer down in the pit of my stomach. This isn't the first time that I've noticed it.

As we drive, and I let my eyes close so I can focus on the way the wind feels, I wonder how long I was asleep. I don't fully remember what I was doing before I went to bed, or if Yusei ever left. My body still feels heavy, though. I'm still so, so tired. This is the first time I've ever slept this much, I think. The first time, I realize, that I've felt safe enough to.

The nightmares now aren't quite nightmares, either. Not quite good, but also—certainly not bad. There's a difference now that returning to Arcadia, returning to Divine, is no longer a tangible fear.

When we stop and I open my eyes, we're on a little dirt ridge on the side of the road. Some small trees and half-naked bushes trim the cliff, and there's a guard rail to keep people from falling.

I lift my helmet off and rub at my arms, wishing I'd brought a coat; below us, downtown is still alight with neon. Signs of sunrise turn the distant sky pink.

"Cold?" Yusei asks. I turn to respond, to nod or something, and he slides his arms out of his jacket and wraps them around me. He leans into me, arms just barely touching my waist, and the rest of his loose jacket drapes from his shoulders down over mine. I don't know what's more startling, the sudden warmth, or the fact that he's—holding me. "Is this okay?"

"Yes," I hear myself say. "Where are we?"

"I come here when I need to be alone. It's far enough away that I can still see everything, but the noise isn't as much."

"Oh."

"I… just wanted to talk to you. To get you to decompress."

"What do you want me to say?"

"Well," he puffs, frowning, "it's not fair of me to ask you if you're okay. I think I know the answer to that already. I guess—what can I do? Is there anything I'm able to make better?"

"I don't know," I say. "I'm still sorting out my emotions. There are… pros and cons."

"What kind of pros and cons?"

"Cons, that I killed a man."

"You defended yourself against a child kidnapper and murderer who tortured you for eight years. You're justified."

"But I… I can't express to anybody what that means to me. I don't even know if Aki would understand."

"Try me," he says.

"I… I suppressed my abilities and tried to pretend like I was useless because I didn't want to be like Divine, Yusei. I wanted him to love me, but I was too afraid of him to really try hard at it. When Aki came, I saw what he could do to people, and what—what he wanted to do to me. Being powerful just… it's what he wanted. It's not that I killed him. It's that it felt good. It's that I became exactly what he wanted me to."

"The circumstances are different. You can't just say that it's what he wanted. You don't know that. He's gone now. You can be anything you want."

"I—"

"What are you worried about?" He asks. "That you'll do it again? That you'll kill someone that doesn't deserve it?"

"...I… I don't…"

"I've watched you come into this power, Silvan. You've been using it for good so far." He squeezes me gently. "You've saved my life too many times to count."

"Is that enough?" I ask. "If I save one person, is that enough to come back?"

"If you kill one person who deserved it, who would have killed you if you hadn't done it first, I don't think you have to come back from _anything_."

"But the way it felt."

"It should feel good to get to stand up to someone like Divine. You're not bad, Silvan. And I don't think you're like Divine, either. This is not black and white." He exhales and sets his chin on top of my head. "Now, I have to be honest with you. This isn't where I wanted to bring you."

"Is it?"

"There's… somewhere else I want to take you. Somewhere that'll hopefully make you feel a _lot_ better."

"Where?" I ask.

"Well, I… I wanted it to be a surprise, admittedly, but with a bit more thought, I realized where I'm going to take you might not make a very healthy surprise."

"Yusei," I say flatly, "Where are we going?"

"I, um. I did some research while you were asleep, and I made a call. Some old friends. But I just… I wanted to mentally prepare you for the fact that we have to go to Arcadia."

My brain feels like it has to shut down for a second to process that. " _Why_?"

"That's the surprise part. I just—I wanted to warn you. I think you'll be all right once we get there, when you see what it is. Is that okay?"

I swallow. I haven't set foot _near_ Arcadia since I left. Aki told me it was just bare bones after the Dark Signers attacked it. And nobody wanted to inherit the things that had happened there under Divine's watch, so I'd thought it'd just been sitting empty.

"I wouldn't take you there if I didn't think it would help you," he says. "Trust me?"

"I—I do," I stammer.

"Okay. Do you want some more time here, or do you want to go now?"

I almost pause to tell him that I'd like to stand here longer—I almost want him to keep holding me. But I swallow a thickness in my throat and hear myself say, "Let's just get it over with."

"Okay." He retracts from me, and I'm shrinking a little in my brown and gold sweater, the sleeves too short to cover my arms and keep me warm. He offers me a helmet again—and then his hand. I hold him tight, eyes squeezed shut, as we speed back down the road. I keep telling myself that it's going to be okay. Divine is dead. Going to Arcadia won't hurt me anymore.

The drive is shorter than I expected, and when Yusei comes to a stop, my stomach feels like it's hitting my knees. I keep my eyes squeezed shut until he moves to dismount, and I have to follow.

He takes off my helmet. I open my eyes. Arcadia looms before us, a big shiny ghost of every part of myself that I ever hated.

"I—I don't know if I can do this, Yusei," I only barely manage. Yusei comes around to me, pressing his hands over mine. Am I shivering from the cold or from something else?

"It's okay," he says. "Nothing can hurt you here. I promise. You'll understand soon."

I set my eyes on warm yellow lights a few floors up. All covered with curtains, but still aglow. Who dares live here, now?

"Come on. It's okay," Yusei says. "I'm here."

I set my hands at my sides in fists. Yusei coaxes one of my hands open and slips his fingers in between mine. Slowly, he urges me forward.

A light in the lobby comes on, and I start. Yusei has to stop, to rub at my shoulders, to keep me from straight up turning and bolting. The sight of a some figure in the lobby, coming down the stairs, sends off a deep-seated fight-or-flight response in me.

Yusei keeps coaxing me on, murmuring that it's okay, one hand on my shoulder, the other folded in mine. My knees wobble. I don't know if I can do this.

The figure gets to the front door, and I can see them fiddling with keys. It's quiet enough that I can hear the lock click. They're—small. Curvy. Not lean, imposing, straight as an arrow. _Not_ Divine.

The door opens, and the sound makes me start again.

" _Silvan_?" Seria's voice completely undoes me.

I sink to my knees, and Yusei's still there, but now Seria is, too—she's here and _real_ and she throws her arms around me when she reaches me. I sob into the thin white shawl bunched up around her shoulders.

"Can I call you that?" She asks. "'Silvan'?"

I try to formulate a response but just end up nodding wildly. She's here? In Arcadia, again? How did Yusei find her? I have so many questions.

"Can you stand? Can you look at me? Oh, gods, what you've been through since I last saw you…"

"Wh-Why… how are you… oh, _Seria_ ," I babble into her shoulder. Yusei rubs gently at my shoulder.

"Oh wow. Look at you. Your _hair_ , and—and…" she pauses, waiting, possibly for me to get a handle on myself, but when I pull back to look at her, I feel like I'm going to turn back into a sad little puddle.

" _My_ hair," I snivel, "look at _yours_! It's so long… how are you here? What—what is… what's _happening_?"

"What do you mean?" She hoists me onto my feet, one hand on my shoulder, the other on my face.

"I—I thought… at the trial, you… I thought you didn't want to see me."

"You thought—oh, Silvan. I didn't even know you were _there_." She tucks my unruly hair behind my ear. "I left as soon as I was let off the stand. I had things to take care of, I… did they ask you to speak?"

"Yes." I swallow. "I tried to look for you. After everything…"

"I did, too," she says, which makes my heart soar. "I didn't know what name you were using, though. And the Bureau was intent on protecting you. No descriptions or anything that I could give were enough to get them to lead me to you."

"You went off the public records," I say. "I went through phone books and censuses and didn't see you anywhere."

"I asked for that. For my safety, and everyone else's."

"Everyone else?"

"Seria runs her own psychic house," Yusei adds gently, hand still on my shoulder. "It's how I found her."

"You… you do _what_?"

She nods. "Nobody wanted Arcadia, after… everything. It was dirt cheap, so I—I bought it."

"You _bought_ it?"

"Yes. And it's not Arcadia anymore." She shrugs her shawl in tighter. "It's cold out here. Do you want to come inside and see? Everyone has been dying to meet you."

 _Everyone_?

I trail after her, my hand in hers, and Yusei follows. The inside of the lobby is pleasantly warm and smells like candles are burning. The old dark wood and fuschia wallpaper have been ripped out around the walls, and instead everything has been painted in warm champagne tones. Behind a desk at the front, delicate curly gold letters spell out " _Elysium_."

"Arcadia was so dreary and dark," Seria explains as we tromp up the entryway staircase. "I ripped it all out and repainted myself. After a while, I'd only gotten through one or two floors, and some of the residents' parents started coming by on weekends to help. Near the top floors, paint's still a couple days old."

As we keep on up the stairs, floor by floor, I'm taking in how unrecognizable it is. Even the banisters surrounding the atrium are a different color, the glass barriers under them all clear and faceted like diamonds instead of their old frosty surfaces. I count floors in my head as we pass up and up and up, taking note of the place like I'm seeing it for the first time.

We pass around the fifth floor, and in that place where my bedroom used to be, it's just—smooth wall.

"My room," I say weakly.

"We sealed it off," Seria says plainly. "Besides the fact that I wouldn't put you or anyone else back in there ever again, it was unusable anyways. One of Divine's temper tantrums got to it."

" _Oh_."

Up and up and up we go, and Seria chatters happily on about the changes she's made, her new developments, until we get all the way up to floor ten, and there's a little boy waiting up for us. He's still in his pj's, and he looks at us with wide eyes.

"Mikai!" Seria puts her hands on her hips. "Are you supposed to be out here?"

"I-I'm sorry! I just… we could see you out the window—"

"That's okay." Seria stretches a hand toward him. "Come say hi."

The boy sidles up to us, his blue pj pants dragging. He's skinny, dark-haired, and can't be any more than nine. He looks up at me, and then at Yusei, as if he were looking at giants.

"I watched you on TV!" He says. "You're from Team 5D's!"

"Hi," I say meekly. Yusei, to my left, squeezes my hand.

Seria is beaming. "Mikai, do you want to lead us?"

He stretches a hand toward us, and I give mine to him. The three of us follow him down the hall, to a door at the end—Divine's old office. My throat feels dry, and I almost feel like seizing up. Just on instinct.

Yusei's voice, warm at my ear, makes my body tremor. "It's okay."

The room behind the door is not Divine's office.

Bookcases line the walls, shouldering long iron ladders with wheels. Edison bulbs dangle from the ceiling near ladder-tops, turning the room pleasantly yellow. A long wooden table cutting down the center of the room is full of teapots, cups, and little tiered pastry towers, and on all sides, I find myself staring at too many children to count.

Varying ages, all of them—everywhere from five to maybe my age, a couple possibly even older. I stare at them, and though they stare back, murmurs rise around the room: I am confused, but these people are laden with curiosity.

From the head of the table, another familiar face beams at me. "I assume you're back because you went out and found yourself, finally!" Kawasaki says.

Pressure leaves my pinched shoulders so fast that I almost feel numb. Kawasaki, still grinning ear to ear, comes around to throw his arms around me.

"I saw you riding, in the WRGP," he says. "You and my Hiraeth, and that slide move you pulled with the Hidden Knight… man, I have _never_ been more proud!"

"Thank you," I say, my voice choking on the ghost of tears.

Seria, from my other side, gestures to the table of spectators. "Silvan, these… these people are Elysium."

Waves and 'hello's surface from the table.

"After Arcadia was unable to continue, I decided I wanted to do it again. But _better_. Everyone here is of varying skills, varying ages… and they're here because they want to be. And these are just the ones that choose to live here. We have others that choose to live on their own, or with their families… all with the same goal, simply to learn to use their powers."

A girl of maybe fifteen on one side of the table, dark hair pulled into two braids, elbows to the front of those around her. "Is it true, all that Seria said about you? That you escaped?"

I swallow. "She helped me."

"Is it true about what Divine did to you?"

"...what do you mean?"

"Did he take your powers?"

"Hey now, you know that isn't what I told you," Seria snaps.

A raucous starts in my stomach—ashamed, unruly, and determined to set the record straight. "He didn't take them from me. He tried to hurt me, but he didn't know that I'm stronger than him. Would you like to see?"

The tiny crowd tenses: children, teenagers, that scattering of adults… all psychics. More than I've ever seen in one room. All eager to see the girl Divine couldn't kill.

Fire blooms in my fingertips—blue and pink and red and orange and white. Lightning races up my arm, coiling around my stabilizer like a snake, pops of impact snapping out of me like crackling embers or sounds from a whip.

I hold that lone flame in my hand—the last bit of proof that Divine ever lived, that he ever hurt anyone—and I watch it burn until it finally fizzles out.

The last time I did this for someone, it was in the courtroom—I remember the screams. But all that comes from here is… sounds of wonder. Oohs and aahs. Clapping.

The courtroom was the first time I had ever publicly shown people my powers—I know what baggage being psychic carries, and so I have gotten used to the pretense. Showing Andore my powers didn't count, not _really_. Seeing Aki at the Fortune Cup a million years ago scared me into faking a common life. Eight years pretending to be powerless made the charade easy for me. In that courtroom, I was… a victim, but also a threat. Bearable only because Divine was the bigger problem.

But I am not a monster here.

When I look at her, Seria, next to me, wears this expression of unfathomable emotion. Pride, mostly, but… a lot of something else I can't pick out.

"Well. I thought we could all have breakfast together, this morning," she says, hands clapped together. "It's a special occasion. And I thought, maybe, you two could join us."

Yusei looks to me—it's my call. Staying.

I swallow. "It… It sounds nice. Thank you for inviting us."

The room seems to brighten, after that. Yusei and I sit and meticulously pick for pastries around flying, eager young hands. Children as young as eight and as old as thirteen gather around me and bombard me with questions.

"How many classes do you have?!"

"I—uh." I have to count on my fingers. It's been a while since I've thought about it. "I'm a quinclass."

"You have _five_ classes?"

A tiny redhead asks, "What are they?"

"I can Specify, Waste, Internalize, Expel, and Hide."

In between mouthfuls of croissant, a preteen girl with thick glasses asks for a demonstration. With my permission, someone holds a candle to my hand. When the flame disappears, there's this hush of almost disappointment, but when it flickers on my thumb and I relight the candle, there's an uproar.

The girl from before, with the two dark braids, asks me what Hiding is. When I explain, her eyes get wide and she exclaims, "I can do that! I've been calling it 'Shrinking', though."

I don't know if there's an official name for it—but I'm happy and warm at the prospect of sharing something with this new generation of psychics. I learn that her name is Izumi, and now she beams at me as if I'm the sun every time that I look her way.

Somebody, one of the adults I think, asks Yusei if he's Psychic. Sheepishly, he insists that he's common and starts to retreat from the conversation; almost like he's worried what they'll think of him now. Instead, the conversation becomes about him in the WRGP, and how the way he duels makes it hard to believe he's common. Kawasaki bombards him with questions about his techniques. I periodically sip from my teacup and remain at the fringe of the conversation, answering here-and-there questions about the tournament and my own stint on the track, until the sun starts to pierce the windows and Seria gets up to close the drapes; I get up to help her, climbing over kids and chairs. A familiar shape catches my attention.

Near the window, where Divine's desk used to be, I recognize the baby grand that used to be in the study on floor seven. It's been polished; it looks brand new. I wonder if Seria had it tuned, too.

I sit at the bench. This instrument, _this_ piano, specifically, used to bring me a lot of—anger. When I was young, Divine would make me sit for hours learning long, complicated songs, sometimes playing until I couldn't feel my fingers anymore. I once had to play for the Bureau officers that came to investigate the Movement. And I always had to be perfect. I couldn't leave until I was perfect.

There's no music on the rack right now, which means that it might just be used for decoration. I don't know what possesses me to, but… I put my fingers down and just _play_.

Even though it's been years, I used to play this song enough that I know it by heart now. I can't remember the name of it—it's one of those symphony pieces, Chopin or Beethoven, or something like that—but my fingers remember the keys.

As I play, my mind goes somewhere else. I'm sitting on the bench next to myself, watching my own face, thinking about how far away I am from who I used to be. Arcadia is gone—perhaps C is, too.

And if she isn't… she isn't someone I feel close to anymore. At least, not in this moment.

When the song finishes, my trembling hands, almost on reflex, try to start the song over. I rest my fingers over the starting chord, nails pressed to keys, and hold them there, ruminating, remembering the sounds they make. Remembering Divine barking "AGAIN!" at me. Remembering sweat and tears and the way my skin peeled around the tips of my fingers and just beneath the nails. I remember begging for a drink, for something to eat. The memories of the music return memories of me sitting on Divine's knee, eleven or twelve years old, nursing a glass of water and watching him point to chords written on the sheet music, explaining the time signature and the crescendos and the stacks of eighth notes.

My hands slide off of the keyboard and onto the bench beside me. Somewhere far away, people are clapping. Someone, one of the Elysium kids, sits next to me at the piano and starts to play Chopsticks.

I look up: Yusei's right there in my field of vision, watching me, leaning against the piano, chin resting dreamily upon the palm of his hand.

I can't explain why I'm crying, now. I don't know why I feel this way.

Divine is gone. It is impossible for me to miss him and resume my life how it is. It is impossible for me to extricate what good memories I have of him from everything he did to me, everything he left me with. He is dead, and I killed him.

I watch my hands as they tremble, remembering those hours and hours at this piano, thinking about the electricity running through my veins. I think about the stripped walls, the new coat of paint, all of the signs of Seria's love for this place at last present. The meticulously stacked pastries, the warm tea, the happy children. The sounds of the people around me messing around on the piano. No tough love, only curiosity emboldened and rounded out by joy. A structure built on the backs of people who can see the way the world outside glows.

Divine is dead. I think it is time for me to start being glad about it.

Izumi, I think, is the one who asks me what song it was—I tell her I don't know. I don't remember. It's okay, she says, she likes pretty piano music and if she finds out what it is, she'll tell me. Mikai implores me to stand so he can try to play something. Three eight year olds bang haphazardly on the keyboard for a while until Kawasaki lifts one of them onto his shoulders so that he can sit down and start playing something; another symphony piece, something fast that I recognize, Bumblebee-something-or-other.

I see Seria put her hands on Yusei's shoulders; she fixes him with a fierce look. She's so much smaller than him, but he seems to shrink when she addresses him. It's so loud in here that I have to strain to hear them, and I'm partly reading Seria's lips.

"I don't know you, Yusei, beyond that you helped my Silvan and you haven't stopped." She points a stiff finger at him. "You had better take care of her, or I swear I will come after you."

Firmly, but a bit nervously, Yusei says, "I will. I promise."

"Good! I'm putting my trust in you."

"I won't let you down." His voice is indecipherable now, but I swear I see his lips say, "I care about her more than I care about most things, Director Shimizu."

"Ooh. _Director_. You're very sweet, but please, just call me Seria." With a firm, knowing smile, she adds, "And, I can certainly tell."

I whirl away from them, scared I just heard something I wasn't supposed to. Warmth courses up my cheeks. That admission, that Yusei cares for me, makes me feel different. I mean, I know that he cares for me, but just that—that way he said it, how softly it sat in his mouth, and the secrecy of it…

What is this? This feeling has always been there, always lurked, but… has it ever been this intense?

I hear Seria say, "We're near morning, now. Ready to head home, Silvan?"

Around me, a chorus of "awwwww"s sound off.

Seria puts her hands on her hips. "You all have things to do today. I already put up the schedule in the mess." She smiles at me. "Besides, Silvan will be back."

Warmth climbs into my chest. I say, "Yes, I will."

Children climb out of my way so that I can move away from the piano bench, and dozens of voices, big and small, say goodbye to me as I follow Seria out of the library. Kawasaki gives me a goodbye hug before I go. Yusei trails silently behind us as we start back downstairs.

"They're always excited to meet skilled Psychics," she explains on our way back to the lobby. "With just me and Kawasaki around to try and teach them, everything is spread thin. Especially since a lot of them have abilities we don't. We're learning together, a lot of the time."

I'm… proud, at that label. Me, a skilled Psychic. I fold my hands silently together, trying to keep myself from fidgeting excitedly. We come down into the lobby, outside, where the sun has begun to peek over buildings.

"Before you go, there's one more thing I wanted to give you," Seria says. She produces a little laptop sleeve—old, fraying, and made of denim. It looks homemade, like someone snipped up their own jeans for it.

"What is this?" I ask.

"One of Divine's last possessions," Seria answers. "The Bureau had been keeping their hands on it until his death. He had no will or last rites or anything, so there was no one to give it to—besides me, I guess, since we were childhood friends. But I figured I should give it to you."

I tense. "Why?"

"Look at the name."

I don't know what she means for a moment, but I fiddle with the case anyways, searching, until I see a tag on the jeans, written in faded black marker: "Hamada."

"This…" I swallow. "How did you know?"

"I did my own research," she says. "I never met her—she was from some other city, came here for university, and Divine spoke of her often enough in letters to me that I didn't know what to think of her. When he came back to start Arcadia, he never talked about her again. I looked her up once and saw her name on a bunch of papers as Hamada-Levine, and when Yusei told me your name, I just—it made sense, finally."

"She's why he took me," I say, a thickness filling my throat. "He—coveted her. Hated my father for being common. He thought I should've been his, me and my brother… so, when she died, he came to Satellite for us. My brother looked too much like my father, so it was just—just me."

"Did he tell you that?"

"Parts of it. I… figured the rest out on my own."

"It makes some sense, why he would have something of hers, then," Seria responds. "I… haven't been able to crack the password on it. I figured you might. I thought it would be of some interest to you."

I slide the thing out of the homemade case—it's a tablet, sleek, but also likely homemade, given how old it looks. It has buttons along its side, enough that I have to assume the screen isn't touch-based. I click a button to see if it'll turn on, and the screen lights up dimly. There's a login bar, a flashing cursor, and a strangely familiar logo above the login.

And, in simple white letters, the words "THE CIPHER PROJECT."

I swallow. "I'll… let you know what I find."

"Please do." She presses her hands to my shoulders. "And, please know, you're welcome here, Silvan. Anytime. If you want in at three AM, I'll come unlock the doors for you."

"Thank you, Seria."

"You're welcome." She brings me into her arms and squeezes. There, next to my ear, where I'm sure no one but me can hear, she murmurs, "I know it was you. I know what happened with Divine. And I know you're a good person, Silvan, so I know that you must be beating yourself up about it, but I need you to know how proud I am of you, that you've come this far. I need you to know how much it absolutely _destroyed_ Divine that you were able to evade him. And because I knew _him_ , I know it must have destroyed him equally to know that you became powerful on your own terms."

Tears prick the corners of my eyes. I squish myself into her shoulder, unable to find any words.

We exchange phone numbers, and when we at last part ways, my heart feels full. The first thing I can think to do is turn to where Yusei is leaned against his duel runner, watching me with soft eyes, and tackle him in an embrace.

He stays still, startled, for a moment before slipping his arms around me and nesting his face into my hair.

"Thank you. For that," I murmur. "You're a very good friend to me, Yusei, and I don't think you understand how grateful I am for it."

"Don't thank me," he replies. "You're important to me, Silvan, and there won't be a day when I won't try to help you."

I pull away and crane my neck up to look at him, my head full of the heady smell of his jacket. He looks so, so wonderful right now, his eyes catching enough light to be bright blue and his hand close enough for me to touch, if I wanted. For a second I'm thinking about what Aki said—it feels like such a long time ago that she said it. How 'he looks at me'. Right now, I can see his eyes tracking over my face and I think I finally understand what she meant.

He squeezes me gently. "Ready to go home?"

"Yeah," I murmur. "But take the long way."

I cling to him all the way back, my cheek pressed against his shoulder blade, and try not to imagine what that would be like.

Us.

He drops me off at my front door. I want to ask him to stay. The words are trying to push past my lips almost faster than I can form them. I hold them back because I don't know if I want to leap forward like this yet. I want to be sure. I don't want to rope myself into something I just can't do. I don't want to hurt him, if he takes a chance on me. And if he doesn't, I don't want to ruin the friendship he's given me.

I think if he stayed, I'd just want him to hold me. That would be nice.

I tell him 'good night', my voice so low that it's almost lost in the breeze.

"Hang in there," he says. "See you in a bit?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I think so."

"Good." He dismounts, accepts the helmet he loaned me, and leans to put a kiss on top of my head. "See you."

He begins to walk his duel runner back across the square, and emotion crawls up into my throat, sits upon my voice, and chokes me until he's out of sight.


	57. Beast In The Belly

Sleep for me has become heavy, thick, and sweet, like syrup. Dreams still take hold of me with strong, clawed hands, but the nightmares are less vivid. I always stay under these days, but I can never sleep quite enough.

The clock says two thirty when I finally wake today. I lie in bed until three, hoist myself up, and trudge across the hall to use the bathroom. Before I go downstairs, I brush my hair and my teeth—some part of me believes that it will convince at least someone (maybe me) that I have been awake for hours, even though I'm still wearing drawstring shorts and a sports bra.

I almost think no one is downstairs, but when I open the fridge, a noise like metal clanking comes from where Kiryu's new duel runner is in pieces by the back door.

Evan, goggles perched on top of his head, pops up. "Silvan! You're awake!"

"Yeah," I say, digging around in the fridge for something to eat. "I'm exhausted."

He sighs. "...I know."

I find an orange in the fruit drawer and bread on the top shelf. On my way to the other side of the kitchenette to fire up the toaster, Evan starts tripping over things trying to get to me.

"I can make something, if you're—"

"Dude, I'm not an invalid. I can make my own shitty depression breakfast."

He pauses, frowning.

"...sorry," I mumble.

"...are you… taking medicine again?"

"No," I say. "I'm just—real tired, all of a sudden. All the time."

"...do you. Wanna see a doctor?"

"I don't know," I exhale. "I'm really sick of seeing doctors."

"I know. I know it sucks. But this is new, I feel like… I don't know, if you're up for it, we might—try."

"Maybe. I'll think about it." Saying that felt like a lie. I slide a couple of pieces of bread into the toaster. "Where's Kiryu?"

"I sent him out to the hardware store. I'm missing some bolts."

"Oh. Okay. You see anyone else today?"

"Yusei came by earlier to see if you were around," Evan starts, which makes my heart start to sputter. I'm not used to this—lightness that comes with the mention of him. Realizing what I know now has made thinking about him… different. "Yeager made a reappearance, so everyone is out today trying to get the drop on him."

"Oh," I say again. "I didn't know we were still hunting down the program he took." Now I'm angry at myself for sleeping through the morning.

His brow furrows. "Silvan… you keep insisting to me that you're fine—"

"I am fine."

"—but you're so… distant. Upset all the time. I know it's hard to talk, but I just… I want you to trust me with things. I hate seeing you like this and knowing there's nothing I can do about it."

"Well, if I could do something about it, I wouldn't be so upset."

"Why are you upset?"

"I just… feel… weird." I lean against the counter and start to peel open my orange. "Different. Not bad and not good. Of course I don't expect to feel better so soon, but—Divine's been dead for a week."

"And are you okay about that?"

"Yes! I'm—happy!" I say it through gritted teeth. "I'm happy. I don't feel happy, but I am. There's no more reason for me to look over my shoulder and feel afraid, but…"

"But?" Evan leans against the counter next to me.

"This is the first time in my life I've really had the freedom to wonder about myself. Like… I feel like my personality is a result of Divine pushing me away. And now that he's really gone, how much of that is really me?"

"Are you really having an identity crisis right _now_?"

"Haven't you ever thought about that?" I say. "Divine didn't take you because you reminded him too much of Dad. So you stayed in Satellite—didn't everything there build your personality as you know it?"

"Silvan, Divine didn't build your personality. You did. You're shaped by your experiences. You choose how to react to them. He couldn't tell you how to feel."

"But… is my life still defined by that? Am I still defined by what happened between him and Mom?"

"Silvan," Evan exhales, "what the hell are you talking about?"

I stare at my orange. I've started absentmindedly peeling all of the white webbing off of it. "I…" I pause.

A week since Divine died. Nearly that long since last I saw Seria—since her gift. I put it in a drawer and haven't looked at it since. What will I find if I crack its password? And, if I don't… what knowledge will I miss out on?

Have I waited long enough? Can I bear to look now? Is it too early to open back up the Divine wound, or too early, even, to explore what it could mean? To discover if my old name wasn't just some flippant cruelty to a shell of a child?

"Nothing," I say at last. "I'm… figuring it out. I'm figuring a lot out."

He pokes my arm. "I want to help, Silvan."

"I… I know you do."

"Please let me in. You don't have to tell me anything you're not ready to say, but I just… I'm here to listen. I want to try to help."

All of my revelations and conundrums from the last week churn around in my stomach. I feel more tangled than I ever have—more incapable of expressing myself than I ever have.

What comes to my mind is not quite my biggest problem, but it does take up space in me. Lately I've been shoving it backward in me instead of trying to understand it. Maybe it's to sate him—I don't know why—but I hear myself say, "I think I might have feelings for somebody."

He tenses beside me. "Really? How long have you felt this way?"

"I… I don't know, actually. I think I've felt hints of it for a really long time, but I never really knew what the feelings were or what they meant until recently."

"What kind of feelings are they?"

"I feel—safe with them. They know me. They've… always been there for me. And they always go out of their way to show me that they care about me. And when I'm with them, I just… I'm compelled to always want to be around them."

"Those definitely sound like some feelings feelings."

"When I'm with them, it's different than it is with other people. I can't really explain how. It's a different kind of comfort than when I'm with you, or with our friends."

Evan looks awkwardly down at his hands. "Do you… have, like… sexual feelings for this person?"

"No," I say, and even though it kind of comes out sounding like a question, I don't think I've ever been more sure of an answer. "I mean, I think I could, probably, at some point. I've never really thought of them like that. Not that I don't find them attractive, because I do, but I just… I don't know. I don't want them to sleep with me. I just kind of want them to hold me."

"Oh." It comes out sounding like a sigh. Not quite surprised, but… almost dreamy. "Do they know you feel like this?"

"Well—no! Not, um. I don't think so."

"Why not? Shoot your shot."

"I'm not—I don't—I… don't want to do that yet."

He raises his eyebrows at me.

"I'm not in a place where I think I could tell them yet," I say. "I'm still… dealing with stuff. I need more time. I don't want to drag them into all of my baggage, and I—I want to make sure that what I'm feeling is real. Because if they do decide to entertain it, I don't want to hurt them."

"This is a weirdly mature way to go into a first crush."

"First of all, this is not my first crush. Second of all, what the fuck do you mean weirdly mature?"

"Well! I dunno! Most people kinda just… I don't know! Our age, most people just say 'fuck it' and go for it, then pick up the pieces afterward."

"They're my friend, I don't… wanna ruin anything."

"Ah." Evan puts his head in his hand. "You sound like someone else I know."

"And who's that?"

"It's not important—but I'm happy that you're trying to sort this out. I think it's a big step that you're starting to open up more to feel this way about somebody." He leans forward a little more. "Am I allowed to know who it is?"

"I… I'll tell you when I'm sure."

"Okay. I suppose that's fair." He reaches to ruffle my hair. "Do you want to help me with the duel runner when you're done? Getting some work done might help get your mind in a good place."

"Sure," I exhale. "By the way, did you… do something to your goggles?" I peer up at him. "Polish them, or something? They look different."

"Kiryu got them recast." He slips them on over his eyes. "While we were in Satisfaction Town. They're inlaid with Dyne now."

"Oh! That's really cool of him."

He beams. "They're sturdier now, and I can use them as a stabilizer."

"How… how are things with you two?" I ask. "I'm sorry I haven't been very present. I've been trying to give you guys your space, and I've had a lot going on—"

"It's okay," he interrupts. "I appreciate it. We've been… good. Weirdly good. I don't know how to explain it." He pulls his goggles back off. "Spending tons of time with him is helping him get reacclimated, and honestly, me as well. I'm starting to accept the domesticity we have, and I—honestly kind of love it. He's doing better, too. Much better. It's getting easier and easier to get him to accept, like. Affection."

"That's wonderful."

"Yeah. He just—glows these days. I dunno. It's been really remarkable to watch."

"And you?"

"What about me?"

"I don't know. You're… certainly different than you were." I pause. "Kiryu was the one piece of the past that you wanted back more than anything. Is it all you thought it would be?"

He looks at his hands—his cheeks are visibly pink. "Well. Yeah. I—I love him. I don't think I ever stopped."

My stomach churns; not quite nervously. More… achingly. At last, my brother seems to have what he wanted the most.

What I, now, have suddenly somehow begun to ache for.

When I finish my food, I help Evan out with piecing Kiryu's duel runner together. It's near completion now—it's literally just a puzzle from this point forward. We chat here and there, sometimes about feelings, sometimes about work. Once or twice about Elysium.

Elysium. It still blows my mind, how something so beautiful could emerge from the ashes of everything Divine wrought. In all of my muddied memories of my day to day life in Arcadia, now, one sticks with me the most: the day that Seria confided in me that she wanted to do what Divine did, but better. I have never been more grateful for her.

When Kiryu comes home, he's got Evan's bolts, and also ice cream, for some reason.

Sheepishly, he explains to Evan that he just felt the unquenchable need to buy some, but Evan, of course, doesn't scold him. I can see in Kiryu's face, in his posture, that he isn't used to having little luxuries like being able to buy something like ice cream when you want it, and it dawns on me that Kiryu has been adjusting to more than just Evan and being a real, alive person again. It's easy to forget that he's from the Satellite, too, and that he went straight from resurrection to a self-imposed exile in the middle of the desert. Living comfortably is as new to him as it was to my brother.

For the next hour or so, Evan and I finish the duel runner, at last, and Kiryu shares his ice cream with us. Watching him interact with my brother feels… too excellent to explain.

He's happy. They're happy. And when Kiryu looks at my brother, Evan looks back like Kiryu's just turned a light on inside of him.

Have they always existed like this? So in love that it's tangible? Have I really just been missing out on it?

I spend a lot of time with them the rest of the week—in between sleeping in too late and dragging myself to work early like a zombie. I recommend books to Kiryu and he shows me how to beat a few levels of some of Evan's video games. Often, I'm home alone while Evan and Kiryu take his new duel runner out for test drives.

I didn't know Kiryu when I was in Crash Town, at least, not well. I knew he reminded me of myself, once upon a time, and now that I'm getting to know him better, I can see why my brother loves him. He's funny and clever and—impossibly kind. And if Kiryu is learning to embrace his past and accept that he is loved, the prospect of me doing the same is becoming more tangible, bit by bit.

On Friday, when Kiryu and Evan are out, I'm neck deep in a dilemma I've been pushing back in myself all week. I'm near my breaking point, now. The tablet Seria gave me is sitting on the kitchenette, staring at me. I know I need to try and open it up. I want to. But what if what I find makes everything worse?

I haven't told Evan about it. I can't. He's so happy. He shouldn't have to deal with me, or what the information on this could mean for me.

There's a knock on the door. I stand up to answer it.

Aki stands there, fresh and awake, dressed in her red and white coat and stockings. She looks very well rested, and her eyebrows furrow together when she sees me.

"Have you been sleeping?" She asks.

"Yes," I say. "So much. Too much. And still not enough."

Her fingers twist uneasily with each other. "May I come in?"

I step aside for her. By the time I've closed the door and gotten back down off the stairwell, she's sitting on the couch, hands clenched, head hanging a bit.

"I'm sorry about what I said to you."

I pause. "...it's all right."

"...you're going to forgive me so easily?"

"Of course."

"Why?"

"Well, it's…" I pause, searching for my words. "It's not my responsibility to tell you how to feel."

"But you were hurting, and I was blaming you instead of being there for you…"

"It's all right. I don't blame you for feeling that way. I understand what you wanted. I understand how you feel. And I don't think you need to apologize to me for just letting your emotions run their course."

"But I want to." She frowns. "Silvan, it took me some time to accept how different things are now. And I'm sorry it was so hard for me."

"It's not your fault you feel this way," I exhale. "Divine violated you more than once, he made you feel like you always had to be the strongest one in the room, so those emotions are his fault."

"But I—want to be the strongest. And I'm angry at how powerless I am now." She doesn't look at me. "Did you ever feel like this about me?"

"Sometimes," I admit. "But I also… I chose to be powerless. Now that I'm choosing not to be, I… I understand why you miss it."

"It's not even all that I like being powerful," she says, "because I do. I also… What am I, if not psychic, Silvan?"

"You're a beautiful, talented duelist and an exceptional student with a ridiculously bright future ahead of you."

"...yeah, well, maybe I shouldn't have asked you," she says, cheeks pink. "You're biased."

"Well, so are you!"

Aki throws up her hands. "I just! Being psychic has been such a deeply rooted part of my personality for my whole life thus far. Without my powers, I feel… just… useless."

"Well, that's Divine's fault, too." I frown. "I'm not trying to tell you that because I think it's going to fix you overnight. But I do believe that if you know the source of the problem, you can try to work it out from there."

"But how?"

"What would make you feel better?"

"Having my powers back!"

"Dig a little deeper than that." I sit next to her. "I'm… still trying to figure my own emotions out. But I'm thinking that what would make me feel better is knowing more about what happened to me. And figuring out how to separate myself from it."

"What do you mean?"

"Divine is dead," I say. "I keep saying it to myself to make sure it's real. And now I want to be sure that I can move forward, and that I am who I am because of me, and not because of him."

"Well, I'd say you are." She loops her arm around me and puts her head on my shoulder. "You wouldn't be this unconditionally kind to me if Divine had made your personality."

Warmth pulses in my stomach. "Thanks, Aki."

She puffs a sigh into my neck. "I think… I want to figure out how else I'm useful. How I can help people without my powers."

"There you go, that's a good goal. It's a great place to begin."

"I've… been spending a lot of time with Crow lately."

"I noticed."

"Oh, shush." Her voice gets very small when she says, "I think I like him, Silvan. Like… I really really like him."

"Have you told him yet?"

"I've been trying to. But I'm—scared."

I exhale. "Yeah, I get that."

"I don't know how he'll react," she admits.

"Well, he likes you. Doesn't he?" I ask.

"I think so. He knew I liked Yusei, and he told me that, but he also told me he wanted to get to know me. Wanted me to give him a chance."

"Well that's good! Right?"

"Yeah, but—but what if he thinks I'm just crushing on him like I was crushing on Yusei?"

"And how's that?"

"Like—I just wanted his attention." Aki moves away from me a bit, her hands balling into fists. "Yusei was never really going to give me the attention I wanted. We're not similar enough, and I think—I think he may like someone else."

"Oh," I say. I remember that conversation I had with him a thousand years ago. About Bruno. My resolve withers a little. It dawns on me that I don't even know if Yusei is interested in women.

"Plus, I… my mind wasn't in the right place. And now that Crow is my friend, that I know him and he knows me… I just… I feel for him. And I don't know what to do with that."

"You have to tell him," I say. "He likes you too, Aki. He wouldn't have asked you to give him a chance otherwise. For gods' sakes, he brought you flowers when you were sad."

She exhales quickly. "I'm scared."

"I know. It's okay to be scared. But, like. It's part of the process, isn't it? It means you really care."

"Okay."

I sit there next to her, twiddling my thumbs for a moment, before I have to blurt, "I have something that's been bothering me all week."

She blinks at me. "What is it?"

I take a breath. She'll understand. She was in Arcadia, too. She'll know how I feel and what it means. She'll know why it's important. So I tell her about Elysium. And Seria's gift.

When I'm done, she looks completely taken aback. She opens and closes her mouth. "...can I see it?"

I get the tablet from the counter. Aki turns it in her hands, examining the handmade cover. She slides it out of the case and looks at the archaic buttons on the front.

"Are you going to open it?"

"I… want to."

"How?"

"I have to… I don't know. Try to write a code to bypass the lock?"

"I don't think I can help with that," Aki says. "But I can be here for moral support."

"What if… what if what I find on it is bad?"

"Well, it was your mother's."

"But Divine had it."

"I doubt she gave it to him."

"I… guess."

"Come on." She bumps me with her elbow. "I'll help you start. Tell me what you need and I'll get it."

With purely Aki's goading, I finally get to work. I don't think I would've been able to bring myself to actually start writing a bypass code without her literally putting the keyboard in front of me.

I think this tablet is—pretty old. Maybe thirty years old. Definitely handmade. I have to crack open a few books to figure out how the hardware works, but it'd be impossible for me to know exactly how it works without opening it up. And I don't wanna risk ruining whatever information is on it.

Aki chats at me through it—I'm glad to have her here. When Kiryu and my brother come back, they inevitably ask what I'm doing, but before I can answer, Aki tells me that "they'll find out when I'm done." I'm so glad she's here. I'm glad she's not angry with me anymore. She bolsters my confidence so much—and I need that today.

Later in the evening, Aki has fallen asleep on the couch, and I'm falling asleep in my chair at the desk. It's been four or five hours, and I'm drifting off until I hear this voice.

" _This is Day 1 of the CIPHER Project… We don't have much done yet, but that's okay. Day 1. We've got a lot to do_."

I rub the sleep from my eyes. The screen dimly shows—me. No, not me. Dark-haired, dark eyes… by all other accounts, the girl on screen looks like me.

" _My name is Rei Hamada, and my partners are out right now but—let it be on record right now that we're beginning experimentation today. We've spent the last few weeks building this machine, and today I'm gonna—whew, I'm gonna get in it. We'll see how it goes_."

The screen flickers. Rei, my mother, again—same chair, same green-wallpapered room. She sits there with a broad-shouldered, blonde boy in thick brown glasses.

" _Day 2, Rei here again. Sören is here this time—"_ the boy waves at the camera _, "—after yesterday's hiccup, he has to fix some of the things and we're waiting on Dai to bring us the rest of the parts we need_."

" _The electrical coil malfunctioned when we turned the power on,"_ Sören says, his accent thick and almost unintelligible _. "I am also considering rebuilding the inner mechanism so that Rei no longer has to stand within it_."

" _Well, where will I stand, then_?"

" _Preferably on the outside, where you will not get electrocuted if something goes wrong again_!"

Another flicker. I lean closer in, trembling hands clutching the tablet, as if I could press my face through the screen and finally speak to the parents I have never known.

" _It's Day 12! Rei again. Sören is still rebuilding the inside mechanism, so we're on standby for a few more days. The energy experiments haven't been all that more successful. We're hoping they'll be better once Sören puts the final touches on the machine_."

Another flicker. Another day. And another. Each, documenting whatever experiment my mother and father were conducting. I can't bring myself to move my eyes from the screen.

" _Day 14. Sören here, hello. We are at test number three today in the new machine, and so far there is nothing to be worried about. Mercifully, she no longer stands inside of it_."

" _Day_ _21\. I didn't know we were making video diaries, but I'm here now."_ A lanky boy with auburn hair sits in front of the camera. I know him. I _know_ him _. "My name is Dai Teruma, and I'm assisting on The Cooperative Internal Psychic Helper and Expulsion Regulator Project—or, er, CIPHER Project, I guess. The goal of this project is to_ —"

" _Loosen up, Dai, this is just for records' purposes! No one is ever going to see it. You're so formal_." Rei pops into screen and shakes Dai by the shoulders. Her hair is pulled tightly back and she's wearing something reminiscent of a hazmat suit.

" _Ah, okay… I guess. But I was just saying, the purpose of this project is to amplify the powers of energy-regulating psychics_."

" _Mine specifically! Since I don't create energy, I just capture it. So it's the safest way to test the machine_." Rei leans closer to the screen. " _The city is cracking even harder down on coal power and rushing phasing out non-solar and non-wind electricity. We're still looking for a more reliable renewable source. Future me, I propose that psychics are a powerful energy source! And through practice and training, we grow more powerful—so why not utilize the energies we make for the better_?"

" _Day 35_." Sören looks exhausted. His glasses are perched on top of his head, like my brother and his goggles. " _We are testing the new machine. The university is passing off the explosion as an earthquake—I do not know if they really know what we are doing down here… Professor Carreaux has not ratted us out yet_."

" _Day 50_." It's Dai again. He looks more somber. More silent. " _Today's experiment was a success. Rei was able to channel electricity through her body and power the hydroponics shed upstairs, but it was enough to knock her prone. I don't know how long she'll be unconscious_."

" _Day 75. This is my last recording."_ Rei folds her hands on the table. She looks somber. Her lip trembles _. "Yesterday, after Dai reported Sören for the project, he came down and used the machine. Pumped himself full of energy and set fire to the physics building. We shouldn't have perfected it this far. He's_ … _out there. And dangerous. I should have seen the signs."_ She bites down on her bottom lip, as if to keep herself from crying. _"I don't know what happened. Sören won't tell me. He says it's to protect me. I know they never got along, but this is… just insane. The only thing I know is that it's easier for Sören to reason with the judicial council, to try to stay, than it is for Dai to come back from arson. I can't help but feel like this is my fault."_ She leans in closer to the camera _. "I'm going to destroy this machine. Using psychics as power sources was a bad idea. Because, as much good as I think it could do… Dai has shown me that the bad outweighs it. I was stupid to never consider others using something like CIPHER to make themselves more powerful. Sören says it was an easy mistake, but... I wish I could assume the best in people. I wish I didn't keep getting proved wrong. Weaponizing this… that could hurt a lot of people. In any case… we're done. It's over. Hamada signing off_."

The screen keeps flickering, static bubbling over it, as if there are still more testimonials in it that can't get out. Maybe if I tinkered with it more, I could uncover them, but… I feel as though the resolve has been sucked from me.

The screen flashes briefly, to a fuzzy image of Dai—no. Divine. The Divine I know. Hands folded atop a desk.

His garbled voice says, " _...llo….ome to…1…. CIPHER…ect_." And the screen goes back to fuzzy.

I think… I understand now.


	58. Forward

Upstairs, my friends are all doing… something. Something important, I think, but I'm also not fully clear on all the details. Going somewhere. Looking for something. Not sure.

Here, downstairs, I'm—testing another code. Bruno built a third computer down here a couple weeks ago, so I have more processing power to work with here at the guys' apartment than I do at home.

I've been… slowly digging through my mom's tablet. Finding more testimonials. I'm scared to break it apart to figure out how it works—scared I'll break it before I uncover what else is inside—so for now, I wait, and I have Bruno fix my code so I can find whatever else is encrypted. I have to know more before I risk figuring out how the thing really works.

After I found the first few videos, I just sort of sat down and cried. There were a few stages of it. I wondered if Divine ever really cared for me. I wondered if my name meant that I was just for the sake of the project, if I was to become the new CIPHER, or if it was simply in memoriam of the thing that I assume is what got him kicked out of university. If the electricity was only because it was what my mother had learned to channel.

Can I Internalize more because of that? Is it genetic? No… then Evan would have been able to do the same. He would be able to absorb all that I somehow can. Did Divine, perhaps, use electricity on me solely to build my strength the same way CIPHER built his? Could it have been only a coincidence?

I don't know. I can't know anything, now. Everyone who was involved is dead.

Still, I push on, intent on knowing more. I've uncovered a few more days' worth of diaries from my parents and Divine—whom I now know as Dai. Still no more from that garbled entry of Divine as I know him, which offers the better question: how did Divine get ahold of this tablet? The last entry from after he framed my father is still there, which means Rei couldn't have given it to him. He couldn't have taken it with him. Surely he couldn't have stolen it? Did someone give it to him after the death of my parents?

I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. What I do know is that I must push on.

Upstairs, the commotion continues. I need to ask someone about the finer details; right now all I know is that Yusei and Bruno are in mechanic's jumpsuits, and Aki's putting makeup on Yusei's criminal mark. Something to do with Yeager. Something I haven't had the mental capacity lately to pay attention to.

I am still always tired. I force myself to get up, now, not just for work, just so that the world doesn't continue to pass me by. The earlier I get up, the more I can get done, anyways. If I bury myself in work, I won't have time to feel.

There's a knock at the door, and no one is downstairs right now, so that means I'm the one that has to answer. I run my newest code with Bruno's edits from an hour ago and get up to answer it.

The sight of Sherry LeBlanc on the doorstep knocks the wind out of me. She looks absolutely fucking killer in her riding suit, metal plating like armor clamped on over her arms and chest, and when she sees that it's me, she smiles. " _Allo, jolie_."

"He-Hello," I stammer. "What, uh. What brings you here?"

"May I come in?"

I totter out of her way. Her accent alone is enough to knock a grown man on his back. It's a miracle I haven't already swooned.

"Who are you, um… who are you looking for?"

She slings a garment bag over her shoulder. I have a two-second daydream of her carrying me off on the back of a white horse. "Is Yusei home?"

"He's—upstairs."

"Perfect, I'll go see him now."

She starts toward the ladder to the loft, and I trip over myself following her. Dealing with what feelings I have for Yusei would be all-consuming, if I wasn't already dealing with the CIPHER Project, but _gods_ , Sherry is _gorgeous_.

Upstairs, Yusei's sitting the wrong way in a desk chair, arms coiled around the seat, while Aki sponges makeup on top of his criminal mark. Her gloves are on the desk and her hand's covered with smudges of makeup eight or nine shades darker than she would need.

"Sherry! Good that Silvan let you in," he says.

Aki whacks him on the shoulder. "No moving."

"Do you have somewhere where I might change?" Sherry asks.

"Bathroom down the hall," Yusei says, while the sponge is against his cheek. Aki flicks his forehead, then reaches for a powder out of the small cluster of makeup items stacked on the desk.

"Akiiiiiii?" Bruno pops out from around the corner, visibly naked from the waist up. "How do I fasten this? I can't find any zippers or buttons."

"Oh, for Christ's sake." Aki brandishes a brush and the container of powder to me. "Will you please set his eye?"

Wordlessly, I take the brush, and Aki runs to go help Bruno.

"Will you hit me if I talk?" Yusei asks as I bend to dot powder on top of the concealer on his face.

"I'm considering it," I say. He tries to fight back a smile. He watches me intently as I dip the brush and press the powder onto his cheek. I feel I might start sweating.

"Are you really putting this much on?" He asks.

"It's a trick Aki showed me," I say. "You put a bunch of powder on, let it sit, and then brush it away after a couple of minutes. It helps the makeup set better."

"Oh. Alright then. I trust you."

"So, um. What's this for again?"

"The other day, we finally caught up to Yeager." He's visibly trying to move his face as little as possible. "He'd been blackmailed by the new Bureau director to hijack the program, and nowadays he's literally living in a hideout in the sewers with his family to get away from them."

"Who's the director now?"

Yusei shrugs.

"You... don't _know_?"

"Nobody does. Yeager got the command from somewhere else on the chain. Whoever it is, though, is definitely bad news. And I have a feeling they know who we are."

"Also, back up. Yeager—has a family?"

"Yeah, they're bunking with Martha now, though. Better than the sewers." He frowns. "He's got a _kid_ , for gods' sakes."

"Damn."

"Anyways," Yusei continues, "the director sold the information to a company called Momentum Express Development. So Sherry, Bruno, and I are going in today undercover to see what they've done with the program."

"That would explain the, uh. Makeup." I flick the collar of his "BnC" jumpsuit. "And the costume."

"Costumes are courtesy of Aki. Her mom's seamstress friend again. BnC wouldn't actually lend us the uniforms, if you can believe it."

"I mean, makes sense they wouldn't want to be involved in literal spywork. Close your eyes?"

His eyes shut and I start to brush the powder from his cheeks. Good lord, his eyelashes are long.

"And what does Sherry have to do with this?" I ask.

"She's investigating on her own."

"Open your eyes and look up?"

He does. I swirl the brush underneath his eyes; hopefully my powder job is okay enough that Aki doesn't feel the need to do it again.

"What is she investigating?" I ask.

"How nice of you to ask." Sherry brushes into the room all of a sudden, her voice sending a chill down my spine. Even in a baggy ass jumpsuit, she looks like a fucking model. "When I was quite young, my parents died."

"Oh. I'm sorry to hear that."

"Rather, they were murdered."

" _O-Oh_."

"I was raised by my father's closest friend, Mizogushi, who had worked for our family since my father was young, and he gave to me my father's last gift: this spell card."

From her pocket, she produces a card. When she sets it in my hands, I can tangibly feel the energy coming off of it.

'Z-ONE,' the card reads. It's a simple spell, allows the user to add a field spell to their hand, but not much else. I can't get over the feeling it gives me.

"You are psychic, _chérie_ , are you not?"

"I-I am."

"So then, you must also feel what I feel lies in that card."

"I… don't know what it is," I confess. "You're right, though. There's something here. Some energy. Some tether to something."

"Does it speak to you?"

I stay silent—I wait for something, anything, focusing everything I have on the card.

"No," I say. "I don't hear anything."

"It speaks to me." Sherry offers her hand for the card back. "It asks me to break its tethers. There is power within it, and I must know what it gives. My father was killed for it."

When I hand her the card, it—sparks. On instinct, I suck the energy in, swirling that sparkling piece of something around on my fingertip, and Sherry looks me up and down.

"I—retain energy. It's my thing," I explain.

"Remarkable." She arches an eyebrow. "When I return, perhaps you and I can talk more. _Alone_."

Heat curls around my ears. Half of me needs more time to decipher what I feel—where I stand with Yusei. The other half wants something with someone else, one more time, just to make sure. "I, um. I'll have to—think about it."

"Of course. I hope it will be an easy decision—I would not have asked if I could not tell that you fancy me."

If I went out with Sherry, would it only confuse me more? I don't know. I wanted to distance myself from Andore because he felt so much, too much, for me, and I didn't feel the same. I can tell just from this and our previous interactions that anything I'd have with Sherry would be—probably really sexual. Can I justify doing that to myself?

If these feelings for Yusei are as real and deep as they feel, can I justify doing that to _him_?

I breathe out slowly through my nose, trying to pick the best words to use. "I. Think you're absolutely gorgeous, Sherry. And fully a badass. But I have to be honest with you, that I do fancy somebody, and unfortunately it—it isn't you."

She raises her eyebrows at me. "Shame. We could have had a lot of fun together."

"I'm—sure we would have."

"They'd be a lucky woman." A pause. "Man?"

"That part is unimportant," I say.

"Lucky one, then." She slips 'Z-ONE' back into her pocket. "I am open to you changing your mind."

"I'll, um. Be sure to let you know."

In one very smooth motion, she sweeps her hair up off of her shoulders and starts to adjust it, presumably, so she can easily pin it back. "Shall I wait for Bruno to ready himself?"

Yusei, who looks particularly stunned, says, "Yeah, we should. There's coffee on the stove downstairs, if you want some."

"I might take you up on that." Sherry starts producing pins from another pocket on her jumpsuit, and full-on jumps down from the loft, missing the ladder, into the kitchen while still pinning up her hair.

"She's—something," I say. Yusei just stares at me. "What?"

He's frowning. "I—didn't know you were into somebody."

"Well, um. It's a new development."

"Do I know them?"

"I'm not telling you."

"Oh no?"

"I'm not really telling anyone," I confess. "Not until I'm sure."

"You're not even sure?"

"Listen, I'm not… good at emotions," I say. "I have a lot going on right now. I feel things, but I need to be sure that they have real ground before I go throwing myself at this person, and—and it'll just confuse me if I try to mess with somebody else. Plus, if it is really real, then going with somebody else would feel disingenuous."

"This is… different for you," he says. Then he waves his hands really fast and adds, "I mean, I don't mean that in a bad way! Just… you tend to… _fling_."

"I know," I puff. "But I did all that to feel something. That's different. That's—not like this."

He opens his mouth to say something else, but in comes Bruno, dressed in his own jumpsuit, shaking out a baseball cap with the "BnC" logo on it. "Aki fixed me."

"You bet I did," she says. "Oh!" She leans to examine Yusei's face. "Good. Okay. Thanks for doing that, Silvan."

"You're welcome! I'm glad I did it right."

"It helps that I spend forever blending him. If somebody sees that it's makeup, it'll be harder to keep up the facade. Hand me that setting spray?"

I reach for the clear bottle on the table, and Aki directs Yusei to close his eyes before she sprays him.

"Do I get to wear makeup, too?" Bruno asks.

"Do you want to?" Aki asks while fanning Yusei's face with her hands.

"Is there time?"

"No," Yusei retorts, eyes closed and nose scrunched.

"Okay, then later! When there's time."

"Can I put eyeliner on you?" I say.

Bruno dramatically brushes his hair out of his face. "Make me a model."

"Oh, that wouldn't be hard," Aki retorts. "You're tall and you have good skin."

"Aw."

"Okay, you should be good now," Aki says. Yusei opens his eyes and blinks a few times. "Just don't—touch your face a ton. And please try not to scratch."

"What if my face gets itchy?"

"Just, like. Tap it. Like this." Aki illustrates by tapping her own face in a motion like she's tapping in foundation. "That's the best I can offer."

"Wow, that's weird. But thanks. For the advice, and also for the makeup."

"Can't be an undercover criminal, obviously," I retort. He sticks his tongue out at me.

"You can keep all this stuff in case you need it," Aki chimes. "It's way too dark for any of the rest of us, anyways."

"I might be able to use it," I say, "but you're darker and more pink-undertoned than I am, anyways."

"I don't know what that means! But I will keep it, thank you." He gathers up the makeup supplies off of the desk. "Bruno, Sherry's downstairs. Are you ready to go?"

"Yep!" Bruno slips his hat on, puts his hands on his hips, and beams. "My fake name shall be… _Timothy_."

"You're using fake names?" I ask.

"Yeah! Part of the undercover experience!"

" _Timothy_ , where did that come from?" Yusei retorts.

"Hey, I put a lot of thought into it!"

"All right, fine. I'll be…" Yusei thinks for a moment. "Help me out here."

"Mark," Aki suggests.

"Adam," I say.

"Scott?" Aki adds.

"Uh, John," I chime.

"Those are all super white and generic," Yusei retorts.

"Yeah, we're going for generic," I remark. "What about Robert?"

"Or Daniel?" Aki says.

"Okay, no more suggestions. I'll just be Daniel."

"Super! Ready to go, then?"

Yusei snatches his hat up off of the desk. "Yep. I'll put this stuff in the bathroom, then we can get Sherry and hit the road."

"Sounds good!" Bruno heads down from the loft, and Yusei pops into the bathroom to put his makeup away.

When he comes back, I say, "How long are you expecting to be gone?"

"No idea," he answers. "But it'll definitely be by the end of today."

"Please be careful. You have no idea what you're walking into."

"We will." He brushes a bit of my hair behind my ear and slides his hand in against my neck, against the scar there. I feel myself lean in, drawn to him like a flower to sunlight. "Good luck with the tablet. Let me know what you find—when I get back, I'll help."

"Thank you," I say.

He starts down the ladder. I move to follow him, but Aki's voice stops me.

"It's him, isn't it?"

"Wh-What?"

"I heard you talking, earlier," she says. "It's him. Right?"

I don't say anything. My pulse thuds anxiously in my throat.

"It's the way you look at him. You just… both of you. It's like you're both infatuated with each other and neither of you wants to admit it."

"I… _what_?"

"I think you'd be good together," Aki continues. "I really… Silvan, when you figure yourself out, I really think you'd both be good."

I swallow. "But how do I know that? How do _you_ know that for sure?"

"I've—suspected for a while. The two of you just always seem to interact like that, all the time, but lately there's been this change in you. I can't explain it. And I'm happy for you, that you feel that way."

I take a step closer to her and lower my voice. "How do I know that's not just normal? How do I—know he feels that way?"

"You can't, until you ask." Aki shakes her head. "I can't explain how much clearer it is now that I've been feeling that way about Crow. It's just easier to see. I can just tell."

"How do I know that I'm really feeling that?"

"There's a point, I think, where it becomes all consuming. Where you just can't take it anymore, when you have to tell them. And I think it's that undying need for them to know, to get it off your chest, that's the sign. If you can keep the secret forever and not regret it, then to me, it isn't worth it."

"I'm—scared of this," I admit. "How do I even say it? How does a person confess that?"

"The words just… appear. They might be really graceful, or they might just suck a lot, but they do come. You'll know how to say it when you know."

"That's so vague," I say.

"I think it's supposed to be," Aki says. "I think these things are almost never clear. You're supposed to figure it out along the way. Didn't you tell me that I just had to get it over with, and go tell Crow?"

"I—I mean…"

"You did." She reaches for my hand. "You deserve to feel loved, Silvan. You deserve to _be_ loved."

I don't know what to say to that.

From downstairs, Yusei's voice shouts, "Hey, guys, we're heading out!"

Aki pokes her head down through the loft entrance. "All right, stay safe!"

"Will do!"

I stand there, rooted to my spot. Aki goes downstairs without another word to me. My stomach churns.

Is there any way to tell if she's right, if there's a chance for me? Will knowing that help me to start deciphering my feelings?

They're something I'm going to have to face, no matter what I do. I know that for sure.

When I finally come down from the loft, I find the reason that Aki came downstairs: Crow, leaning against the kitchenette, and Aki leaning with him, against him, arms around his neck.

Crow turns bright red when he sees me. He's wearing his Blackbird Deliveries jacket, so he just got off work. Both of his arms are curled around Aki's waist.

"No cast," I say. "And if you went to work, then you're feeling good enough to ride, finally."

"You bet," he replies. "I'm still a teensy bit tender, but otherwise I feel like a million bucks."

"Oh, also? You guys are gross. Go get comfy somewhere else."

"I'm going to throw my shoe at you," Aki retorts, but she smiles her way through the sentence.

Heat curling in my cheeks, I head for the desktop where the CIPHER tablet is plugged in. A video is playing on screen.

"Oh, that's been playing since I got inside," Crow remarks. Bruno's bug fixes must have done something right, then.

The screen isn't fully focused, but on screen it's: Divine. As I know him.

The sight of him no longer frightens me the way it used to—he is dead. I am stronger than him.

He dug his grave, and I pushed him in.

" _Today is February the 21st_ ," he says. I recognize his oak desk, and his leather-clad hands, those familiar gloves, folded in front of him on the table. He exudes cunning. Ambition. Murderous calculation. " _This is day 145 of The CIPHER Project. It is the anniversary of Zero Reverse. Cipher has grown very quickly, and is eager to learn more. I still have not seen any signs of her Expulsive capabilities, but readings I have collected from her during today's check-up indicate that she has slowly been Internalizing energy around her. I do not know if she is aware of it. I have no way to know whether she is the stronger of the Hamada children, but I have faith that she will take after her mother. I cannot recreate the CIPHER machine on my own, not without plans, not without the right materials, but I am still seeing constant signs that it is possible for Cipher to gradually grow stronger and hone her energy-retaining powers with small indundations of energy. I am considering beginning to heighten how much she Internalizes on a daily basis, but I am still trying to figure out how to go about it. So far, all that I pick up her taking in are fluctuations in the building temperature. I will have more to report once I figure out what energy to try next_."

The video starts over again after that—I think it's stuck in a loop. I might have to write another code to get it to stop, or at least move on to another video.

"What was it?" Aki asks.

"I'm starting to think that my hypothesis holds some ground," I tell her. "Divine's new CIPHER was obviously me—but he couldn't use the machine to make my powers stronger. So he was using organic ways to strengthen how much I could Internalize. And it seemed to be working."

"The—the... punishments?"

"I haven't gotten there yet. But that is my guess."

"I guess it makes sense," Crow chimes. "If he kept feeding you energy, it makes sense that you would adjust to take in more and more."

"And it would explain why I can retain more than Evan."

"It's similar to the way he trained me," Aki says. "He'd have me Physicalize small cards first, then bigger ones. My powers were already strong when he found me, but—he built me higher, even then."

"Maybe CIPHER was the method he was using for all of the Arcadia kids," I say. "It could explain why he only selected certain people. You can only build so high if you start from a certain point."

"You could be right," Aki says. "And back then, Mikage said he was training us to fight. The stronger we were, the more we could fight."

"Yeah." I frown. "I guess it could be worse."

"How?"

"He could still be alive."

Aki swallows. "You're certainly right about that one."

I stare down at the flickering image of Divine. His cruel, taut face. Seria said he was good, once. I still wonder what that might have been like.

"I still have a lot of work to do," I say. "I don't know how much memory it has, but I'm guessing there's a lot more to uncover."

"Probably. Divine seemed to be continuing this project well into our time at Arcadia."

"I want to know if there's a result in here," I reply. "Or, if he talks about trying to get a result. Or a reason. He has to have had a motivation."

"Didn't he always?"

"Yeah, but… this'll be the first one that I know about for sure."

To be honest, I don't know why I'm looking for reasoning. For closure? Peace of mind? I don't know. At the very least, Seria gave this to me, and Divine was documenting everything for a reason.

Even if I don't get what I want, even if everything else is lost to time… I have footage of my parents. Their faces. Their voices. There is proof of where I came from, proof that my parents existed and that I am theirs.

Theirs, not Divine's. Not anymore. Not ever again.

And perhaps as I decipher my feelings about my purpose in Arcadia, I can have a better time charting the waters of whatever it is I'm feeling about Yusei. This… _infatuation_ , Aki called it, that's somehow always been there. Is it really possible that all of his affection for me became something different at a certain point? Is there a way to know for sure?

"Crow," I say, my voice hollow, a bit echoey, a bit far away. "Does Yusei have feelings for me?"

He breathes slowly, deeply, out through his nose. "Oh, gods. I was wondering just how long it would take you to figure that one out."


	59. Thinking Too Much

"I… I don't know what to do from here."

"What do you mean, you don't know? I've never known you to be indecisive, Silvan."

"I just—I mean—I really don't know how to go about anything. I feel… weird."

"Well, you have your answer." Seria snips another tomato off of the vine nearest to her hand and sets it in my basket. "You know how he feels."

"Yes, but…"

"But _what_ , Silvan?" She shakes her head. "Goodness, even I could see it when the two of you came here together. I've seen him on TV looking all gallant and cool-headed, but he follows you around like a lovesick puppy dog."

" _Seria_."

"What? I'm only telling you what I saw."

"I'm—trying to figure myself out right now. I already said that I don't know where to go from here."

"Well, don't you feel the same?"

"I…"

Seria places another tomato in the basket and moves on to the next vine. The greenhouse is on the roof, and was repurposed by somebody's parent who's got experience building this type of stuff. Seria says Elysium is a 'pay what you can' sort of thing, so a lot of grateful parents have given her labor in exchange for schooling their children. It blows my mind, the types of kindnesses that exist in this world.

"Listen, Silvan." She weighs a pepper in her hand. "Do you or do you not want to be with Yusei?"

"I… I _feel_ like I do."

"What does that mean?"

"I've never done this before! I don't know if this is just a crush, or—"

Seria scoffs. "I doubt it! Given the way you talk about him, you're as smitten as he is."

"I-I—"

"Silvan, I know that things like this are tough. And _new_. But I think the answer is clear."

"Well, I don't!" I exclaim.

"It's obvious that you care about him the same way he cares about you. So you need to tell him that."

"No!"

"And why not?"

"Be-Because!" I stammer. "What if I, I get what I want, and we get together, and it's not what I thought it would be? What if I don't really feel that way? What if I'm fooling myself?"

"Well, some relationships are like that." She tosses a green pepper into my basket. "Some turn out good, others not so good. It's important to be patient and communicate your wants and needs with your partner so that the two of you can talk out problems you have and stay on the same page, but—you can't _do_ that until you _have_ a _partner_."

"But that's so—gods, it's so much easier just to…"

"To _what_?"

"To leave before morning," I mutter.

Seria sighs. "It's not supposed to be easy, Silvan. In fact, it's almost _never_ easy. Love takes work and tears and sweat. But the point is that you care enough about the other person to do that sort of work—to answer those tough emotional questions."

"But what _if_ any of those things happen? What if it's just… not right?"

"Then the two of you will figure it out." Seria moves along to the next row of flowerbeds. I totter after her, weighed down by the basket. "You're missing the point, Silvan, and it's that you're psyching yourself out too much. None of those things can happen unless you're actually _together_."

"Well, I guess."

"You _guess_." She shakes her head. "Loving someone is scary. You don't know what's going to happen next. You don't even know if it's _love_ love _._ But you can't answer any of those questions, or any _more_ of them, if you don't take a chance. And you can't just pretend it's not real."

"I mean, I _can_ —"

"If you can stomach forgetting about it, then it's just a crush. It will go away on its own and you never have to think about it again."

I pause. "I feel like there's going to be a 'but' here."

"I don't think it's something you're capable of forgetting about," Seria answers. "How long has this been on your mind, again?"

"A few… weeks…"

"And has it gotten smaller?"

"Well. No."

"Then what's happened?"

"I! Don't—want to mess up."

"You're confusing me now."

I rest the basket of vegetables on my hip. "You're right, it's not going away. I think about it all the time, and I feel it worse than ever when I'm actually _around_ him. But I'm scared of messing up, Seria."

"Messing up how?"

"What if I hurt him?"

Seria tsks. "You're still thinking ahead. And I think it hurts you both more if you don't just get it over with." She turns and puts her hand on my shoulder. "If you're worried that badly about it, I say you start with a conversation. You can tell him, and you can _also_ tell him what you're worried about. You're both rational people. I certainly think it's easier than you think it'll be."

"Ugh. Okay. _Okay_." I take a deep breath and adjust the basket on my hip. "I need more time to work up to it. To figure out what I'm going to say."

"I say it's still easier than you think." Seria puts her hands on her hips. "'Hey, listen, I have these feelings for you and I wanted to talk about it'."

"Oh, gods, that's so formal."

"So you think on it! I'll stop helping." She peers at my basket. "That's probably enough for stew for fifty, don't you think?"

"Thanks for saying that, because this is damn heavy. Any more weight in here might take my arms off."

"You're so dramatic." Seria removes her gardening gloves; I follow her to the shed near the door, where she puts away her gloves and her shears. Then, together, we head down the single flight of stairs it takes us to get to the elevator, and down to the second floor where the mess hall is.

Elysium is… much easier to be in than Arcadia. Outside, it looks the same, and every time I come here, I still feel this twinge of fear, this flash of memories, of running away and fearing coming back, but once I'm inside, those feelings leave. I see the gold wallpaper and Seria, ready to greet me with a warm hug, and there's a sense of home not unlike the feeling I had when I returned to Satellite for the first time.

Kawasaki is in the mess, chopping up apples for a nine-year-old and a pair of eight-year-old twins, whose names I've learned are Trinidad, Kaede, and Ryo.

There's a small chorus of, "Hi Miss Seria"'s and "Hi Silvan"'s as we approach the sink. I plop my basket down on the counter and start handing Seria vegetables to wash.

"Oh, hey," Kawasaki says, too engrossed in his apple-cutting to look up. "Silvan, how's that tablet coming along?"

It's been a while since I last saw Kawasaki, so I feel like it has to be only natural that he ask me about the CIPHER Project tablet. Seria told me that he had briefly tried his hand at cracking it before she had given it to me, and unsuccessfully, so I don't doubt that he's curious.

"It's going fine," I say. "A couple of my friends are helping me write up new codes to dive deeper into it. I'm too scared to break it open to see how it works; I'd rather see if I can excavate all the data on it first, but it's pretty comprehensive. Either my mother built it that way, or Divine did a little coding of his own."

"Maybe both." Kawasaki scrapes apple slices onto three little plates, steals a tiny piece of apple for himself, and then hands them down to Trinidad, Kaede, and Ryo. "Wash your hands before you eat, ya little monsters."

"I did!" Trinidad says, mouth already full. Kaede has seated himself at a table, and Ryo reluctantly tromps to the sink across from us to wash his hands.

"Both is fair," I say. "I'll keep you updated on what else I find, but for now… what it sounds like is that when my parents were in college, they were building this machine to enhance psychic powers. Calling it CIPHER. My mother's idea, I think."

Kawasaki leans on the counter next to me. "Why enhance?"

"She was looking to use psychic energy as a power source."

"A power source?" Kawasaki remarks. "For what?"

"Do you remember the power crisis?" Seria asks. "I was barely twenty, Kawasaki, what were you, twenty two, twenty three?"

"Ohhhhh yeah." He inclines his head to me. "Coal was getting too big, too detrimental. We had a lot of acid rain and stuff. The only way to keep corporations from continuing to use it was for the Bureau to make it illegal to sell. They cracked down on it in a big way, but it made everybody scramble to go solar or turbine, which was _real_ expensive at the time."

"My family couldn't afford it," Seria says. "We didn't have power for a few months, because it took our local plant that long to fully switch from oil to turbine. Even then, power bills went up a _lot_ afterward for the companies to breakeven. For a while, my mom would fill our house with homemade candles and Divine would keep them lit so that we'd have heat and light."

"Of course, that was before Ener-D." Kawasaki scratches his head. "Weird, that your mom went the psychic route."

"I mean, if power was so scarce, it kind of makes sense to me," I say. "Lucky that Dr. Fudo developed Ener-D."

"Well… yeah! Otherwise we'd be in a lot of trouble. _And_ we wouldn't have turbo duels."

"I mean, didn't he just revolutionize KaibaCorp tech?" I ask. "Somebody had to have thought about using duel energy sooner or later. One of the Kaiba heirs, at _least_ , could have stumbled upon it."

"You're probably right, but who's to say when they would have done that? Could've taken them way longer than it took Fudo."

Seria examines a washed eggplant. "Remind me where this conversation began?"

"Oh!" I say. "Right, CIPHER. Anyways, Kawasaki, my mother had the idea to build the engine, so I guess she, my dad, and Divine got sponsorship from some professor and started building it in secret at school."

"In secret?"

"Psychics were still taboo, I'm guessing. Or more taboo than they are now."

"Oh, you bet," Seria chimes.

"Have you tried reaching out to that professor?" Kawasaki asks.

"I'm pretty sure he's dead," I tell him. "My mom name-dropped him in one of her testimonies, and there was a Dr. J. Carreaux from their uni that died back near Zero Reverse."

"Ah. Shame."

"But, like…" I hand Seria a bell pepper. "I guess Divine and my dad got into some fight. So Divine reported the project to the school, blamed my dad entirely, then used the machine on himself and burned down one of the campus buildings."

"Oh. That's… a lot."

"I'm guessing it's the reason he was kicked out," I say. "I knew the explanation he gave to Seria sounded shifty."

"I always figured he was stretching the truth," Seria says. "But there's no record of it on the internet or anything about that incident, just that Divine's attendance was terminated. Probably them hiding the fact that there was a psychic there. An attack on a uni would get a lot of unwanted attention."

"I have to assume that the fight they got into was related to my mom," I continue. "But also, if Divine hated my dad so much, why were they working together, anyways?"

"They could have been sucking it up because she asked them to," Seria suggests. "If they were both that fond of her."

"That's fair. But I'm also dying to know what the breaking point was."

"Sure sounds like a mystery." Kawasaki rests his chin in his hand. "So, where does your name come in?"

"He was testing the same sort of thing on me," I say. "Obviously, he didn't have the machine, or the smarts to recreate it, so he went about it the old-fashioned way: exploiting my mother's gift before I knew I had it to make me stronger just by training. It's the same method he used to train Aki."

"Slow buildup was his favored method for _everyone_ in Arcadia," Seria says. "Only now do I get why—and why he wouldn't take anyone with powers that couldn't be built upon."

"I'm still uncovering more details," I say, "and it's slow-going, but it's really enlightening. It's started to give me a lot of peace of mind."

"Well, I'm glad." He knocks a gentle, playful punch to my shoulder. "We're proud of you, kid."

"Aw. Thanks."

"Speaking of proud, do we get to see you on the track this weekend?"

"Ah, unfortunately not," I say. "Team Catastrophe was my debut and closing battle. Crow's all healed up now, so he's going to be out and ready to wheel second. I'll be in the pits, though. Still there. Still doing what I can."

"Oh, bummer. Good for Crow, though. We'll be rooting for you guys anyways."

"I'm glad you'll be watching!"

Seria laughs a little bit and shakes the water off of her hands so she can turn the faucet off. I stretch up onto my toes to open a cupboard and reach for a colander for her, so she has a way to transport the washed veggies. "Did you know that duel was the first time I knew you were safe and alive?"

"Really?"

"Kawasaki had the WRGP on all the time before that, but I never actually sat down to watch a match until he called me in for that one."

"I'd seen Team 5D's on before, and I saw Aki that first time," Kawasaki adds, "but I never thought to put together that you might be there, too. They were like, 'here's this newcomer, Silvan Levine,' and I thought, 'cool,' until I saw your face and lost my goddamn _mind_."

I laugh, but Seria frowns. "Oh, he's serious. He almost knocked my office door down coming to get me."

"Aw," I say. "You were worried about me."

"Uh, of course!" Kawasaki sputters. "Do you think I wanted to send a sheltered 18-year-old out into the world with four hours of experience on a duel runner?"

"Oh, come on, I was teasing you. I'm really very grateful for literally everything you've done for me." I hand a few more peppers to Seria, then reach for my furiously buzzing phone where it sits in my back pocket.

It's alight with texts from Yusei:

 **Yusei Fudo:** _are you around_

 **Yusei Fudo:** _i really have to talk to you_

 **Yusei Fudo:** _i have info thats legit eating me alive_

My pulse pounds hollowly in my throat. Does he know? He can't know. I swore Crow to secrecy—he wasn't supposed to tell.

I swallow a lump that's formed in my throat and type back:

 **Silvan Levine:** _I gotta chat w u also_

 **Silvan Levine:** _elysium but ill b home soonish_

 **Silvan Levine:** _u good?_

 **Yusei Fudo:** _im good im just freaking out_

 **Yusei Fudo:** _pacing_

 **Yusei Fudo:** _vibrating_

 **Yusei Fudo:** _all that good stuff_

 **Silvan Levine:** _D :_

 **Yusei Fudo:** _¯\\_(_ _ツ_ _)_/¯_

"Hey," I say. "I should, uh. I should get going soon."

"Oh, already?" Seria dries her hands with a cloth hanging on a cabinet handle. "Will we see you soon? Next week?"

"Yeah, definitely. And I'll let you know if I find anything new from the tablet this week."

"Okay, good. And good luck this weekend with the WRGP starting back up. We'll be rooting for you."

"Thanks, you guys." Seria swallows me in a hug, then Kawasaki, and I pat Trinidad, Kaede, and Ryo on their heads on my way out the door.

Elysium is… good. It makes me feel _good_. There is a strange, disjointed sense of home that I get when I'm there, and it always makes me feel nothing but _good_.

The drive home is pretty okay, pretty short; it's the middle of the day, so traffic is light. I'm trying to be calm and carefree, but there's a lot on my mind right now, and I have a feeling that the Yusei I'm about to see is anything _but_ calm and carefree.

I don't even bother going to put my duel runner away at home. I figure it's faster and easier to just park outside of the guys' place. Before I even _knock_ on the front door, it flies open and there's Yusei, looking just as disheveled as I imagined he would. I've started to become gradually more aware of what an attractive face he has, and it—it catches me off-guard, even considering his wild eyes and hair torn all asunder.

"Good, you're here." He grabs me by the wrist and draws me inside. I stumble after him, into the living room, where Jack and Crow sit with arms crossed on the couch. Both of them look… rigid. Some mix between angry and… straight up _spooked_.

"What's happening?" I ask warily.

"I'm about to dump a whole lot on you, so get ready," Yusei begins. "You might want to sit down."

I blink at him. "Um. Okay."

As soon as I'm in a chair, he launches into it. "So. Last weekend, Bruno, Sherry, and I went to Momentum Express."

"Yeah, you said—you said they were using the program to power an engine, and that's it."

"Yeah, I downplayed it a _lot_."

"Uh. All right."

"So, they were using the program to power an engine, but the technology was dimensional."

I open my mouth.

"Please hold all gasps and comments until the end."

I close my mouth.

"The Bureau Directors blackmailed Yeager into taking our program, then they sold it to Momentum to help them power Ener-D-based dimensional technology, and _yes_ , I said Director _s_ , because there is not one, there are _three_. While we were at Momentum, Bruno and I found our tech loaded on their engine while we were boarded on it, and while we were in it, someone started it up and we ended up losing track of Sherry. She's _somewhere_ , I have no clue where, but that's definitely the least of our problems right now. While Bruno and I were in this little dimensional gap that their engine created, we saw this massive spiral structure on a direct course of impact with Neo Domino, and I thought it may have been in another dimension, but I was _wrong_ and I didn't put any of this together for real until this _morning_ when we met Team Ragnarok."

Yusei puts his hands on his knees and takes a long, slow breath. Then continues.

"So Team Ragnarok are these complete _assholes_ who were blessed by Nordic gods. They have marks in their eyes similar to our Signer marks, and they're also who we're dueling on Saturday, and I think they actually forreal have it out for us because they were _not_ nice to us when we ran into each other today. Where we all met, on the outskirts of the city, over by the bay where you can see Satellite, you can begin to see that big spiral structure that Bruno and I saw in the Momentum Engine beginning to descend through the sky. According to Team Ragnarok, it's the Directors who are bringing it here from some other time or dimension or _something_ that isn't here and now, and we don't know why they're bringing it here, but when I saw it in my vision it was huge and scary and fully capable of destroying the entire city."

He takes a long pause to catch his breath again. I say slowly, "Is that… all?"

"No," he says. "The last part is that we know who the Directors _are_."

"We… We do?"

"Or… Two of them, I guess," he says. "They're the ones responsible for the Ghost. For the Meklords. Placido and Lucciano."

"Wait wait wait _wait_. Lucciano, as in that shitty kid that was in Rua and Ruka's class? And Placido as in… that robot guy that you _literally_ destroyed?"

"Yeah, those guys. Not sure how Placido recovered from the Diablo stuff, but he's still here and super the worst."

"How… How do you know this?" I ask.

Jack tosses a magazine at me. Staring at me from the cover are three highly unusually dressed men, wearing robes and metal attachments that should be out of place to literally anyone. Emblazoned on the cover are the words: **TEAM NEW WORLD, WRGP UNDERDOGS TO TOURNEY FAVORITES.** I recognize the littlest one, draped in white cloth and enclosed in some kind of a metal hoop. The other two, dressed just as outlandishly, I've never seen.

"When we went into that machine," Yusei says, his tone carrying some finality, "I said we lost Sherry. Well, we lost _lost_ Sherry."

"What… What does that mean?"

"Team New World replaced her team in the WRGP standings," Crow answers. "I didn't even realize it until I looked at them this morning."

"I spoke to Carly to ask her what she was hearing in the press," Jack adds. "She's reported on Sherry's team dozens of time since the WRGP started. She didn't even know who Sherry was."

"The machine that the Directors were collaborating with Momentum Express on wasn't just dimensional," Yusei says. "I think it was history-altering. We're unaffected because we knew her personally, but everyone else has no clue it happened. And now, if we manage to beat Team Ragnarok, we're going to have to face the Directors in the finals."

"And, what… if we lose, that thing in the sky comes to destroy the city?"

"That's my theory, yeah."

I run my hands through my hair. "Oh boy. Wow."

Yusei plops down on the floor, as if deflated of all his manic energy. "Yeah."

"This… is a lot. A _bad_ lot."

"Yeah, it's uh. Not a super great day for us," Crow says.

"You said you had news, too," Yusei continues, rubbing at his eyes. "What was it?"

Everything in me stops; I feel like a deer in headlights.

I can't dump this on him. Not now. Not when he's like this—when he's worrying about so much. Beyond the obvious, that this is very _very_ bad, I am not capable of making this about me. This is a super inappropriate time to drag him into some semblance of confession, even if it is requited. Plus, with Jack and Crow here, it'd feel immensely insincere.

I bite my tongue. Swallow the somehow ungodly instinct to paste on an uncharacteristic smile.

"It's not important," I hear myself say. "More Elysium stuff. We can talk about it after this has all blown over."

His eyebrows furrow together. "Are you sure?"

"Yes! I promise everything's okay. Let's deal with this first."

"Okay…" he shakes his head, as if trying to pull himself from a trance. "I think we should call the others and get everyone on the same page."

"I can get Evan and text Aki," I say.

"I'll call the twins and get Bruno out of work?"

"Sounds like a plan."

Hands balled at my sides, I head out of the apartment and lug my duel runner back in through our garage door in the alley. Mercifully, Evan is present and unoccupied, so mid-text to Aki, I tell him to get across the square to the guys' place _immediately_. My texts to Aki read:

 **Silvan Levine:** _SOS GUYS' PLACE ASAP_

 **Silvan Levine:** _NO ONE IS DEAD BUT YUSEI CALLED A FAMILY MEETING_

In entirety, I think it takes all of ten minutes for everyone to gather. The twins show up panting, duel boards in hand, Aki's red in the face but present, and Bruno looks frazzled beyond belief, but he's here, too. Yusei dives back into the same story he told me, insisting on getting through it once more before anyone makes any comments, though it's particularly hard for Aki to listen before she starts vibrating with things she wants to say.

When Yusei is done, he starts answering questions and trying unsuccessfully to talk around all of the comments and things. I have to stand up and leave the room, loiter outside, so that all of the sound doesn't drive me absolutely insane.

Evan comes to stand with me. He ruffles my hair.

"Doing okay?" he asks.

"I'm fine," I answer. "I… wanted to tell him today."

"Oh."

"There's this, now, though, and… I can't do that. Not right now. Not when there's so much more going on."

"That's very unselfish of you."

"I'm _trying_ to be good, Ev. I swear."

"You're making it hard on yourself." He rubs my shoulder, probably trying to be soothing. "You'll get your chance."

"I was… sort of _forcing_ myself to want to do it today, I guess, so. That's a win?"

"Ahhh. I know what it's like to be nervous about this kind of thing, I promise. But he does feel the same way, Silvan. You have to keep that in mind."

"Everyone keeps telling me that," I say.

"Because it's true! I can't tell you how many times I've heard him lament about it for the same reasons."

"What reasons?"

"He didn't want to ruin the friendship, or make it about him if you were feeling particularly bad, et cetera. And he didn't know if you would feel the same."

"I guess there's comfort in that," I say. "The sameness."

"I'm surprised it hasn't gotten back to him that the feeling's mutual," Evan remarks. "Did you swear Jack and Crow to secrecy, or something?"

"Yes," I say hotly. "I wanted him to find out from me. Otherwise, it just feels like gossip."

"Oh, trust me, the rest of us have _long_ been waiting out the end of this debacle."

Next to us, the door swings open. Bruno totters out like there's a fire on his heels, hand pressed to the side of his head.

I trail after him, almost to the clock tower before I'm close enough to ask, "Bruno? Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. I'm okay." He runs that hand through his hair. His expression is… somber. Dark. He doesn't quite look like himself. "Silvan? Can I ask you something?"

"Yeah, of course."

"Suppose you really care for someone. Suppose you might even love them." His mouth becomes a hard line for a moment. "What if you had to do something horrible to that person? Do you think you could still be redeemed? Or would loving them only make it all the more terrible?"

"I… suppose it depends on your perspective. And just how 'horrible' that something is." I shift uneasily. "Why?"

"I just—finished a book today. And I can't stop thinking about how it ended."

"Oh. Was the person redeemed?"

"I don't know." He shakes his head. "We never get to find out."

"Oh," I say again. "I'm sorry."

"That's all right." He rubs at his forehead. "I need to take a walk. I have a headache."

"Okay… Do you want me to tell the others where you went?"

"If they ask. You can tell them I'm okay. I'm sure they won't even notice that I'm gone."

The statement makes me frown. Bruno continues off, looking grim and tired. I _hope_ he's okay.

When I return to where Evan is standing, the door is still open, and my brother is looking inside at the rest of my friends. There's little chatter going on between them, mostly just whispering between Rua and Ruka. Aki sits silently, close enough to Crow that their legs are pressed together; Crow's hand rests on her knee. Jack sits on the other end of the couch from them, and he looks to be furiously texting someone.

Yusei looks up at me and Evan. "Sorry for ruining everyone's day."

"Oh, you didn't ruin anything," Evan says, surveying our friends and their noticeably dampened mood. "This whole saving-the-world bullshit was bound to happen again. Anybody up for some lunch?"


	60. Bent Back

How long has it been since I've stood here? Watched these stands fill up? Worn these clothes? It feels like forever has passed between our last fight, with Team Catastrophe, and now. Forever since I held my own on this track.

Today may be a worse game to play.

Evan lolls his head on his hand, slumping forward in the chair next to me. "The hiatus was a bad plan."

"I don't agree with you, but I understand where you're coming from."

"Okay, yeah, that's fair." He sits up. "With all you've had to deal with lately…"

"If we still had tournaments in the middle of it, I would've had a complete crisis," I say. I check the clock in the upper left hand corner of the diagnostics screen. "Who are we still missing?"

"Twins," Jack says, from over by the water cooler in the mouth of the garage. "They should be here any minute now."

"WHAT the FUCK is UP my FRIENDS." Crow bounds into the pit space from outside in the hallway, wearing his shiny, unused riding suit. When he gets to us, he flexes dramatically. "How do I look?"

"Stupid," Aki says, picking her nails uninterestedly, but she can barely keep a straight face after she says it. "And a bit dashing, I guess."

"Oh you guess." Crow crosses his arms. "I suppose I'll take what I can get."

"That's high praise," I tell him. "Dashing."

"I said a bit dashing," Aki clarifies.

"Oh, shut up, you like me," Crow says. He reaches to ruffle her hair, and as Aki swats him away, she's smiling almost bigger than I've ever seen her smile.

"Are you guys all ready?" Bruno, on the other end of the desk from me, asks. "Like. Mentally, I suppose?"

"Dude, I've been psyching myself out for this for the past month and a half," Crow tells him. "You'd better believe I'm ready!"

"Jack?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." Jack runs a hand through his hair. "I'm… fine to duel Dragan again. It's whatever."

"Hey," I say thinly. "You will be okay. You got this."

"I appreciate the vote of confidence."

"What about Yusei?"

"Oh, he's… in the hallway," Crow says. "Pacing."

"Oh boy," Evan chimes.

"I can go talk to him," I say. Nobody says anything to it, but Crow does give me an alarmed look on my way out the door.

Yusei is, in fact, out there and pacing, wringing his hands together. If his gloves were off, he'd probably be biting his nails.

"Hey," I say softly. I reach for his hands to hold them still. "Breathe."

"I'm trying."

He looks up at me, eyes all gentle, and I breathe out way too sharply for my own liking. We stand there for a second, and I'm holding his hands, fighting back that urge to tell him and distract him from the bigger issue of today.

I say, "You look like you slept well, at least."

"Oh, I'm glad I'm fooling you on that account."

"Ahhh. When we go home today, I'll make you some coffee and you can take a nap."

"That sounds nice. Thank you."

His eyes flicker down, at my mouth. Heat crawls upward into my cheeks.

I'm a distraction. I'd make it worse. I can't do it today. I can't tell him. Not now. Not right now.

Rua and Ruka save me, who'd have thought. Whatever moment I just had, they delve right into the middle of it. Rua raises his duel board into the air and shouts "MAN did I miss this place!"

Yusei looks like he withers a little. He turns to Rua. "Do you have the pit stop sign?"

Rua looks horrified. "I… I thought… you had it."

"I do, I'm kidding with you. It's under the desk where Bruno's sitting."

"Oh, gods, you scared me!"

Ruka, giggling, opens the door for all of us. "Are you guys coming in, too?"

"That's probably a good idea," I say, feeling a little dizzy. When I pass Yusei to go inside, I can feel him looking at me. I have to sit down before my legs give out.

He was—so close. I was so close. I'm not sure how much more of this I can take. How much longer I can pretend.

Evan says, "You look a little sick."

"I woke up nauseous," I lie.

"Oh. I could get you some water."

"I'll let you know if it gets worse."

For the next hour-ish, everyone kind of just wanders around the pits. I fiddle with my hands and try to get back whatever veneer of calm I thought I had not too long ago. None of us really know what to do with ourselves; it's been a long time since we've been back here, and way too much has happened since the last duel, with Team Catastrophe. I'm becoming keenly aware of how much my life feels like a collection of centuries compiled into days at a time.

I've started counting how many rows of seats look filled by the time Rua comes and stands between me and Evan to say, "Hey, um, guys? That scary looking white-haired guy is staring at us."

I glance up; said white-haired guy is, in fact, looking straight at us with a very flat look of disdain.

Evan waves at him. I say, "Take a picture, it'll last longer!"

Crow snickers, and Yusei puts his face in his hand.

"Bitch," I mutter.

"He is super mean," Crow adds. "Meaner than Jean."

"He's jealous," Jack retorts. "We're just way better than he is. Now, come on, let's all lighten up and get ready to win."

Thus, the twins, Jack, and Crow disperse, Bruno, Evan, and I maintain a loud silence, and Aki resumes picking at her nails from her stool beside me. Bruno introduces us to images of Team Ragnarok: first-wheeler Dragan, second-wheeler Brave, and third-wheeler Harald. For a while, none of us talk to each other while the stadium continues to fill up and everything gets so noisy that I can barely even hear myself think.

Before I know it, I can hear the MC, and Aki flinches so violently that she almost falls out of her chair; I have to put my arm out to brace her. Yusei comes to stand next to me, rigid, arms crossed; I reach to press my hand to his waist, where I know his scar is, to offer some sort of comfort, but my hand trembles a little. Touching him now feels almost not allowed. Like I have ventured into the realm of needing to ask for a new sort of permission.

Jack's already at the starting line, idling next to Dragan. Blood pounds in my ears; I can barely hear what anyone's saying, and I'm not sure I'm even paying full attention until Jack and Dragan shoot off around the first turn.

Jack gets it first, and draws his hand. I turn up the volume dial on the diagnostics computer, hoping that somebody else tested the comms system while my mind was somewhere else.

After taking a long look at what he's drawn, Jack plays a monster. " _I summon Top Runner in Attack Position! Then I'll set two cards and end my turn!_ "

Dragan adds a sixth card to his hand; the SPC count rises to 1 for him and for Jack. " _I'll summon Garmr of the Nordic Beasts in Attack Position! Then I'll set a card and end my turn!_ "

"I've seen footage of their last duel," Bruno says. "So far, this one is following it step by step."

"Jack wanted a real rematch," Yusei muses, hand on his chin. "I guess he's getting it."

" _I summon Power Breaker!_ " It's Jack's turn, and I know he's going to make a Synchro Summon—partly because it's characteristic of him, but predominantly because I've also seen the footage of his previous duel with Dragan, and that's what happens next.

" _I'm going to tune Top Runner together with Power Breaker in order to Synchro Summon the one, the ultimate, Red Demons Dragon_!"

At this point, the crowd is so loud that I'm worried about losing my ability to hear. Aki squeezes her hands over her ears. Crow, who's appeared behind her, puts his hands on top of hers.

" _Red Demons, attack and destroy Garmr of the Nordic Beasts_!"

" _I activate my face down—Nordic Relic Brisingamen! This card allows me to raise Garmr's ATK up to equal Red Demons Dragon's until the End Phase! And, the best part is, if Garmr destroys a monster in Battle this turn, you'll take damage equal to its ATK_!"

Jack's already prepared. " _I'll activate a face down of my own, then! Reaction Summon—I can activate it when a monster on my opponent's field gains ATK! By using this to revive Top Runner, the ATK of all of my face up Synchro Monsters gets a 600 point boost!_ "

That extra ATK boost is what Jack needs to eliminate Garmr from the field; as a result, he also drops Dragan down to 3400 LP.

" _If a monster I control is destroyed in battle, I can summon another Nordic Beast type monster—Tanngnjostr, of the Nordic Beasts in Defense Position_!"

"That's a mouthful," Crow retorts.

" _Fine, then! I'll send Top Runner to attack you_!"

Rua looks at us from across the pit section and shouts, "But Top Runner has less attack?"

"Red Demons destroys any monster on Jack's side of the field that hasn't attacked this turn," Yusei calls. "Attacking a monster in Defense Position won't do anything. He's trying to keep it in play."

Top Runner's attack fails because it's less powerful than Tanngnjostr, but it stays in play past Jack setting another face down and ending his turn.

Dragan draws for his turn. SPC are up to 3. " _I'll begin by switching Tanngnjostr to Attack Position! Now, I can activate his special effect and summon Tanngrisnir of the Nordic Beasts, in Attack Position!_ "

"Two big monsters," Crow sighs. "What next?"

"He's likely going to fill his field," Yusei remarks. I can physically see him thinking a mile a minute. "Bruno, what's his ace again?"

Bruno squints at his computer screen. "Uhm... Polar God, Emperor Thor."

"Is it an Effect Monster, or a Synchro?"

"Synchro, it looks like."

"He'll probably summon it this turn," Yusei says. "I won't be surprised if he does."

"Peachy," Crow grumbles.

" _Since you have a Synchro on your field, I can also summon up Guldfaxe of the Nordic Beasts_!" Dragan throws out his hand. " _By tuning Guldfaxe together with Tanngnjostr and Tanngrisnir, I can successfully Synchro Summon the god of thunder, Polar God, Emperor Thor_!"

Yusei's put his detective hat on for this one, then. I wonder if he's done any research about Ragnarok. I certainly don't know enough about Dragan's deck construction to map out possible outcomes. In the end, though, a victory will boil down to have pretty simple ingredients: either Jack will have a counterattack, or he won't.

" _By activating Thor's effect, I can negate Top Runner's own special effect and use it for itself_!"

So, Thor's effect steals another monster's special effect. Top Runner helps to raise a monster's ATK based on the number of Synchro Monsters that are around, so Thor now has _quite_ the boost to defeat Red Demons Dragon: 600 points to its already pretty significant 3500. I fear that Jack has no counter in place.

" _Thor, destroy Red Demons Dragon_!"

Yusei's hand flies to his arm. My fingertips tingle. A jagged bolt of lightning drops down from the sky. Bruno makes a noise of surprise as the screen on the operating system flickers on and off. Is it possible that this is less of a duel, and an actual battle between the Crimson Dragon and whatever bestowed the Nordics with their Rune Eyes?

I could be overthinking it, but based on Yusei's explanation of things, the Nordics do seem convinced that the Signers are in their way. Who knows if their gods share that opinion?

After the play, Thor drops back down to 3500 ATK, and Jack's left with 2900 LP. After setting two cards, Dragan ends his turn.

" _My turn_!" Jack whips out a card. " _I summon Barrier Resonator in Defense Position_!"

He's going on the defensive this time. I'm going to guess his game plan is to wait out Dragan's attacks until he gets the means to re-summon Red Demons Dragon.

" _Next, I switch Top Runner into Defense Position! I'll end my turn after that with a face down_!"

" _Have I frightened you into submission, Jack_?" Dragan calls. " _Your luck seems to have left you_!"

" _Oh, we'll see about that_!"

" _I activate the effect of Polar God, Emperor Thor! I can negate your Top Runner's effect and grant that effect to my monster until the End Phase_!"

Now Thor has 600 more ATK, and if Dragan summons another Synchro, it'll also have a 600 point boost. That's a problem, that he can just reactivate it every turn.

" _Now, I activate my face down! Nordic Relic Mjollnir! This card will not only allow me to attack twice in one turn, but I can deal you 1000 points of damage for every monster Thor destroys_!"

"That didn't take long," Evan mutters. "He'll be left with 900 points."

"That's not zero," Crow retorts.

He's right, but it's unlikely that Jack will win unless he makes good use of his next draw.

Smoke blows over the track; Yusei has his fingers pressed to his mark now. My thumb jumps with energy. It takes me a second to recognize the feeling in the air, and to realize that Dragan's Polar God Emperor inflicts real damage. We all peer out onto the track in silence, waiting for the smoke to clear and to see if Jack is okay.

His duel runner is wobbling precariously as it emerges from the cloud of smoke, but I think he's all right for the most part. Jack flips a face down. " _I activate Tuner's Reflect! This card will allow me to resurrect both monsters you just destroyed, and deal you damage equal to their combined ATK_!"

He must be using those tuners to try and bring Red Demons back... Otherwise, he just took 1400 points away from Dragan and left him with 2000.

Dragan sets a face down and ends his turn.

" _My turn! Time for this to get real_!" Jack draws. " _First, I'll activate the effect of Speed World 2! By removing four of my Speed Counters and revealing a Speed Spell, I can deal you 800 points in damage_!"

Dragan has 1200 LP now. Jack seems so confident, he has to have a plan to combat Thor.

" _Now, I activate Descending Lost Star! With this, I can resurrect a Synchro monster in my Graveyard as long as I bring it back with 0 ATK and DEF and its level reduced by 1_!"

I was right—Red Demons is back. But now, it's definitely weaker than it was. Jack has two tuners on the field... What's he doing?

" _Is this your shield, Jack? A dragon with no fangs and no fire_?" Dragan exclaims. " _You'll have to do better than that if you're to rise above the impossible task of defeating a god_!"

" _And I will! Watch, as my Burning Soul allows me to double-tune my three monsters into the ultimate beast_!" Something deep in the pit of my stomach goes up like a match as Jack—bodily begins to _glow_.

" _A-A double-tuning_?!" Dragan exclaims.

"What the fuck is happening?" I say.

"Something Jack learned to do while we were in Nazca," Yusei answers. "I was going to get around to telling you eventually, but—there were more important things going on."

Jack's pair of tuners burst into flames and move to flank Red Demons on both sides; together, they blaze in that same hot forge fire coming from Jack, and a massive molten dragon emerges from the embers. Warmth courses from my fingers, down into my elbow.

The diagnostics computer calls it "Scar-Red Nova Dragon".

Jack regards his new monster with a nod and an outstretched hand. " _Due to its effect, it gains 500 ATK for each Tuner in my Graveyard_!"

That's two Tuners—Scar-Red Nova has an ATK of 4500 now, enough to not only destroy Thor and steal a chunk of Dragan's LP, but just enough to allow Jack to use the effect of Speed World 2 to defeat him.

" _Scar-Red Nova Dragon, send Thor to the Grave_!"

" _You don't seem to understand the powers of the Polar gods_!" Dragan calls. " _They're immortal! They can't be defeated by a mere show of force_!"

" _What are you on, Nordic? My Attack is higher_!"

" _Not for long! I trigger my face down: Raging Sacred Curse! I can use this to pull your dragon's ATK down by 2000 points_!"

" _I activate Solemn Authority! This prevents your monster from being affected by any of my traps this turn_!"

"He's really planned something," Evan says. He and Yusei both have scrunched, deep-in-thought-type expressions on.

" _Next, I activate Burning Rebirth! This card allows me to equip a monster on the field as a Trap card to a Synchro brought back from the Grave! Return to me, Red Demons Dragon_!"

"Oh, gods, what's happening?" Aki says. Crow is rubbing her shoulders.

"He probably has Trap Eater on hand," Yusei answers. I put it together the second before it happens—activating Trap Eater sends it and Burning Rebirth to the Grave, which brings back Scar-Red Nova, now with Trap Eater's ATK, as well.

Now Dragan has an empty field besides Thor, and Jack's dragon is supercharged: 5000 ATK. Jack did a lot of careful planning in Nazca, it would seem—he plays much differently than he did against Team Unicorn.

" _Scar-Red Nova, destroy Polar God, Emperor Thor_!"

In a burst of fire, the dragon rips a hole right through Dragan's Polar God. Because of the boost in ATK, Jack has enough leverage to wipe Dragan out entirely.

Dragan throws out a hand. " _I-I activate the secondary effect of Polar God, Emperor Thor! Once per turn, I can resurrect him from the Grave in Attack Position, as well as inflict 800 points in damage upon you_!"

Yusei's, Aki's, and Crow's marks full on flicker—I squeeze my eyes shut to block out the light. That heat courses from my elbow up into my shoulder. Lightning strikes all over the track, and Thor's suddenly returned. Smoke blows over Dragan. A bolt of lightning drops down, strikes Jack, and leaves him smoldering with 100 LP.

" _The god won't die when the player does_!" He calls as he pulls towards the pits. " _The winners of this duel are fated to be Team Ragnarok_!"

"I don't love the cockiness we're getting," Evan says.

"It's always possible that they could be more nervous than us," I say.

"Doubt it," Crow says suddenly. I look out towards the track, where Brave has ridden in and is catching up to Jack. He's _standing up_ on the back of his runner, one foot on the seat, the other on the hand accelerator.

"Show off," Aki mutters.

"Brave's called the Trick Star in the Euro circuit," Bruno says, reading off from his screen. "His ace is The Polar God Loki, and that's the Norse god of trickery."

"So, we should expect some tricky moves."

Crow heaves a huge sigh. "I'll go get ready."

Aki squeezes his hands. "Good luck."

He puts his mouth on her cheek and blows—it makes a raspberry sound, and Aki turns bright red and laughs. Then he heads off to get his runner ready.

" _I'll start by setting two face downs_!" When I look back, Brave is sitting back down on his runner. " _Now, I'll activate Thor's special effect! I can steal Scar-Red Nova's for my own_!"

That's a lift in ATK, up to 5000.

" _Thor, defeat Scar-Red Nova Dragon_!" Brave roars.

Both monsters shatter with a sound like an explosion. Energy rattles from my shoulder down, down, down to coil like a snake in the pit of my stomach. Air hisses out from between Aki's teeth; she grips her marked arm _hard_.

" _Due to Thor's effect, I can not only bring him back, but deal you 800 points in damage_!"

Thus, the Polar God rebuilds itself. Jack gets smoke blown in his face, pulls into the pits, hands Crow the patch, and watches him race off.

"Testing microphone," Evan says.

" _I got you_ ," Crow's voice responds.

When Jack comes back, he sinks down into a chair and whines, "My everything hurts. I hate lightning."

I say, "Same," which makes everyone look uncomfortably in my direction. Maybe being able to joke like this is a good sign.

"You settles your score with Dragan, thankfully," Yusei tells him.

"Yeah, hopefully he stops being a dick. Unlikely, but I can hope."

Crow's the one to start the next turn. " _Since monsters exist only on my opponent's field, I can summon Blackwing - Sirocco the Dawn in Attack Position! Then, because I control one Blackwing monster already, I can summon Blackwing - Gale the Whirlwind_!"

Crow's deck type is perfect counter to pretty much anything, so I have to wonder what Brave has in his deck. If it's anything like Dragan's, all of Brave's tricks could come from the way he uses his cards to create tight spots. And Crow's Blackwings are nothing if not good at squeezing out of tight spots.

" _I activate Gale's special effect_!" Crow continues. " _Once per turn, I can halve the ATK and DEF of a monster on your field—guess which one I'm choosing_?"

Now Thor only has 1750 ATK. Crow is likely going to Synchro Summon this turn and knock down some of Brave's Life Points, regardless of Thor's ability to return itself at the end of the turn.

" _Since all of the Blackwings on my field have a combined level of 8, next, I can Special Summon Blackwing - Calima the Haze! By tuning it with Gale the Whirlwind, I'll be able to Synchro Summon my Blackwing Armor Master_!"

"Oh, it _can't_ be that easy," Yusei mutters.

" _Blackwing Armor Master, attack and destroy Polar God, Emperor Thor_!"

The difference deals Brave 750 points in damage—Crow still has Sirocco, though, which will mean more damage.

" _Sirocco the Dawn, attack directly_!"

Crow's Blackwing batters Brave's duel runner violently with its wings. It's not even the end of Crow's first turn, and he's got Brave down to 1250 LP.

Then Brave flips over one of his face downs. " _I activate The Golden Apples! This card will allow me to gain all of the damage I took this turn back to my life, as well as summon a Malus Token_!"

Hoo boy. Back to square one.

Crow sets two face downs before ending his turn. Thor's effect activates, resurrecting itself as well as bumping Crow down 800 points to 3200 LP.

" _My turn_!" Brave sings. " _I'll activate the effect of Polar God, Emperor Thor to take Blackwing Armor Master's effect for my own! Next, I'll send my Malus Token to destroy your Sirocco the Dawn_!"

"What does a Malus Token even do?!" Jack complains. "How does it have more ATK than Sirocco?!"

Bruno, who's already one step ahead, has looked it up. "It's ATK and DEF are equal to the number of Life Points that Brave gained back due to The Golden Apples."

Jack mutters something to himself.

Crow's now one monster short, and his LP are at 2450. After Brave sends Thor to destroy Blackwing Armor Master, he's reeling at 1450.

" _When two of my Blackwings are destroyed in one turn, I can summon Blackwing - Brisote the Tailwind!_ " Crow calls. " _Now, I activate my face down, Black Return! I can increase my LP by the ATK of Polar God, Emperor Thor before returning him to your Extra Deck_!"

"Nice move," I mutter.

" _I activate Nordic Relic Laevateinn! With this, I can destroy Thor because it destroyed a monster this turn_!"

"Did Brave... expect Crow to make a move that would remove Thor without destroying it?" Aki asks.

"It's possible." Yusei rubs at his eyes again. "I've been doing some studying up on the Rune Eyes, and they're a bit similar to our marks. They give their bearers some interesting abilities."

" _I'll end my turn by setting a card_!" Brave remarks. " _Of course, Thor will still return and you'll lose 800 more LP_!"

Now Crow's at 650. That didn't take long at all.

Crow's turn begins, and his SPC are up to 6. " _I summon Blackwing - Blizzard the Far North in Defense Position! Next, by utilizing its special effect, I can bring Blackwing - Gale the Whirlwind back to my field_!"

Crow doesn't use Black-Winged Dragon as often as Yusei uses Stardust or Jack uses Red Demons—it's new, and he's never needed to—so when he does bring it out, could it mean the end of his strategy?

" _Now, I activate my face down, Blackboost! Since I control two Blackwing monsters, I can draw two cards_!" After adding to his hand, he throws another card down. " _I activate the Speed Spell - Speed Force! If I have four or more Speed Counters, I can prevent you from activating any traps or Speed Spells that destroy my cards until my next Standby phase_!"

He's definitely planning something. I have to wonder what it is.

" _Now, by activating Gale's effect, I can halve Thor's ATK again! Finally, by tuning Brisote the Tailwind with Gale the Whirlwind, I can Synchro Summon my Black-Winged Dragon_!"

"Black-Winged Dragon can allow him to circumvent Thor's damage toll," Aki realizes from next to me.

"Yeah, but what after that?" Jack retorts.

"He's still in play, is _what_."

" _When Brisote is used as Synchro Material, I can gain 600 LP back! Black-Winged Dragon, destroy Polar God, Emperor Thor_!"

That boosts Crow to 1250 and takes Brave down to 2950. It's not a huge play, but it does matter.

" _I'll set a card and end my turn_!"

" _Thor's effect activates, my friend! You take 800 points in damage_!"

" _Not really! By placing a Black Feather Counter on my Dragon, I can avoid damage through a small drop in ATK_!"

Crow's dangerously close to losing—especially if Brave makes a play to summon _his_ Polar God. Yusei, next to me, bounces uneasily, as if trying to decide whether to stay or go prepare himself to take the patch.

Upon Brave's next draw, something in the air changes. " _I summon Ljosalf of the Nordic Alfar! Then, because the Levels of the monsters on my field equal its Level, I can Special Summon Svartalf of the Nordic Alfar_!"

Yusei grips the desk hard, as if preparing himself.

" _By tuning Svartalf and Ljosalf together with my Malus Token, I'm able to Synchro Summon the lord of mischief! Come forth, Polar God, Emperor Loki_!"

A shooting pain runs up through my stomach and into my throat; it makes me keel over, like the wind's been knocked out of me. Around me, everybody else grips their arms.

Yusei stares at me with glassy eyes. "How… Silvan, do you… how can you feel this?"

I clench a hand at my stomach. "I—I don't know."

" _Emperor Loki, destroy Black-Winged Dragon_!"

" _Not so fast, there_!" Crow turns over a face down. " _I activate Black Sonic! This will remove all monsters in Attack Position on your side of the field from play_!"

"That should be enough!" Jack exclaims suddenly.

" _I activate Loki's special effect! Once per turn, I can negate and destroy a trap you play_!"

The damage calculation leaves Crow with only 50 LP. Then Brave sends Thor to destroy Blizzard the Far North in Defense Position.

Evan turns his eyes on Yusei and says, "Crow has no cards in his hand."

Yusei shakes himself out of his trance, grabs his helmet, and starts towards the gate. "This conversation isn't over!"

Crow draws, then stares at the one card he's drawn. " _I activate the effect of Speed World 2! By paying 8 Speed Counters, I can draw another card_!"

He's grabbing at straws, at this point. It's unlikely that he got what he wanted from either draw.

"... _I place two cards face down and end my turn_!"

" _Nothing to play, eh_?" Brave laughs. " _Fate's been kind to me today! Let's see me draw a Speed Spell and end this quickly_!" He picks the card from the top of his deck and stares at it.

"Ooh, looks like tough luck," Jack says. "Fuckin' loser."

" _Guess we'll be doing this the hard way_!" Brave calls. " _I'll be dealing with one of those face downs, first! I'm going to activate the effect of Speed World 2 and pay 10 Speed Counters to destroy one of your set cards! That left one_!"

That's the one Crow set second; Brave must figure that Crow's second draw was the one he needed more.

" _Loki, attack directly_!"

" _I activate my face down, Black Wing! I can remove a Blackwing monster from my Grave to negate your attack_!"

" _Have you forgotten Loki's effect? I can negate and destroy your Black Wing_!"

" _I activate Calima the Haze's effect from the Graveyard! I can remove it from play in order to re-summon Black-Winged Dragon_!"

Now they're on a replay. Loki still had higher ATK than Black-Winged Dragon, though.

" _I activate the second effect of Black Wing from my Graveyard! If I have two of it there, I can remove them both to destroy Black-Winged Dragon and Loki, as well as inflict its ATK on you as damage_!"

"Did Crow… set two copies of Black Wing?" I ask.

"That's some intense luck," Evan says.

That took out the last of Brave's LP, but Loki's effect is nearly identical to Thor's minus the LP subtraction, _and_ he still has a trap. Yusei's already idling out on the track, waiting for his go-ahead.

" _I-I activate Dromi the Sacred Shackles! It'll deal the ATK difference between Black-Winged Dragon and Loki to you in damage_!"

And that's it—both of them out. Crow and Jack certainly threw weight this time, though. It's less for everyone to deal with. Crow pulls into the gate, hands Yusei the patch, and then Yusei is off.

Crow gets back and unzips his jacket to air himself out. Aki says, "Hey, you did great."

"Yeah, not bad, considering how long I've been out of commission."

"Testing microphone," Evan says.

" _Loud and clear_ ," Yusei's voice says. He meets Harald further down the track, and I think he's also the one to get first play.

 _"I summon Cosmic Compass in Defense Position! Since I Normal Summoned it, I can summon two Compass Tokens in Defense Position to oppose your two Polar Gods! Then, I set a face down and end my turn!_ "

Almost immediately after Harald draws, Yusei activates his face down: Monster Chain. " _This card will keep three Chain Counters for every monster I control; I have to remove a Counter at the end of each turn! As long as this card is face up, neither of us can declare an attack_!"

Harald looks like he could care less. " _I summon Valkyrie of the Nordic Ascendant, in Attack Position. Then, by activating its effect, I can send two cards in my hand to the Grave in order to summon two Einherjar Tokens. By tuning them together, I can complete the ethereal trio of the Nordic Polar Gods—rise, Polar God, Sacred Emperor Odin_!"

A shocking pain hits me so hard, I almost lose my seat.

Aki, who's keeled over and has one of Crow's hands clenched in hers, stares at me. "Why _now_? Why can you feel this _now_?"

"I already said, I don't know!"

" _I activate the Effect of Emperor Odin; for one turn, all god cards on my field are unaffected by Spells and Traps_."

Damn. That means that the Compass Tokens and Cosmic Compass are gone.

" _Odin, Thor, Loki—clear the field_."

Defense Position was a good his field is clear besides Monster Chain and Stay Force, but Yusei's Life Points managed to survive without a scratch.

" _I will set a card and end my turn_."

Yusei draws. I wonder what he's thinking, and as always, I uselessly wish I could do something to help. At the very least, he doesn't have to fight all three wheelers by himself this time.

" _I activate the Speed Spell - Angel Baton! Because I have 4 or more Speed Counters, I can draw two cards_!"

He appears to get what he wanted, based on the way his expression looks on Evan's half of the diagnostics computer.

" _I summon Debris Dragon in Attack Position! Since I successfully summoned it, I can use its effect to send a card in my hand to the Grave to bring back Cosmic Compass! Next, since I control a Tuner monster, I can also summon Quillbolt Hedgehog back from my Graveyard! Then, because I was able to Special Summon a monster from the Grave, I can also summon Doppelwarrior! Finally, by tuning Doppelwarrior together with Debris Dragon and Quillbolt Hedgehog, I can join the stars together and Synchro Summon Stardust Dragon_!"

"Whew, Yusei came to play today," Jack says.

"I'm just glad we gave him _less_ to have to play with," Crow retorts. He and Jack fist bump across the computer.

" _Because Doppelwarrior was used as Synchro Material this turn, I can summon up a Doppel Token_!"

Is Yusei trying to summon big the way that Jack did? It's been a long time since I've seen Majestic Star Dragon. I can't remember when the last time even _was_.

" _Next, I activate the Speed Spell - Overtune! By giving up one Speed Counter, I can tribute my Doppel Token to summon Majestic Dragon from my hand! I'll tune it together with Cosmic Compass and Stardust Dragon to Synchro Summon the Majestic Star Dragon_!"

Harald's face is fully blank.

" _Nothing impresses you, huh_?" Yusei retorts. " _Because Cosmic Compass was used as Synchro Material, I can draw a card from my deck_!"

Whatever card it was he drew, he sets; then he activates the Trap, Stay Force. " _By paying 1000 Life Points, I can keep Majestic Star Dragon from getting destroyed until the end of my next turn_!"

"Man, he really is going for it." Crow runs a hand through his hair. "He might actually be trying to end this in the next turn."

"I mean, if he comes in hard, that gives Harald less of a chance to recover. Unless he starts off with some really good draws," Jack replies.

Harald draws, then flips one of his face downs. " _I activate Odin's Eye. This will allow me to take a peek at whatever that face down of yours is, in return for the negation of my Polar God's effects_."

"Ooh," Crow says. "Was that Wave Rebound?"

"Yep," Bruno chimes.

"There goes whatever Yusei was planning."

" _I place a card face down and end my turn_ ," Haraldsays, his expression somehow contemplative.

On that, Yusei has to remove a Chain Counter. One more turn until they can attack.

He draws. " _I activate the effect of Speed World 2! By removing all 7 of my Speed Counters, I can draw another card_!"

Yusei looks at his draw—then ends his turn.

Harald draws. " _I activate Odin's effect to make the Polar Gods invincible to any Spells or Traps activated this turn_."

" _I activate Majestic Star Dragon's special effect! I can negate Odin's effect and destroy all cards on your field_!"

There go Harald's Polar Gods... Hopefully for good. I'm pretty sure I remember what Wave Rebound does; will Harald still walk into it?

He sets a card. " _Because it is my End Phase, I can bring all three Polar Gods back to the field_."

" _I activate Wave Rebound! This card will not only negate the summons, but deal you damage equal to the combined ATK of your monsters_!"

" _I activate the effect of Gjallarhorn, from my Grave. Its first effect prevents the summoning of the Polar gods from being negated_."

Everyone around me seems to release the same frustrated breath.

" _The secondary effect? Thor will allow me to deal you 800 points in damage. Odin will allow me to draw a card. Loki will allow me to add Odin's Eye in my Grave back to my hand. The third effect? In three turns, you will be dealt damage equal to be combined ATK of all three of my Polar gods_."

A bolt of lightning rips towards Yusei. I dig my nails into my palms. 800 points of real damage. To make matters worse, on Harald's End Phase, Yusei has to destroy Monster Chain. Harald can attack him next turn.

Yusei draws. " _I summon Stardust Phantom in Defense Position! I'll set a card and end my turn_!"

Harald draws. My leg starts to bounce. " _I activate the effect of Speed World 2; by removing 10 Speed Counters, I can destroy one of your cards—Stardust Phantom_."

" _I activate the effect of Stardust Phantom! When it's destroyed, I can summon Stardust Dragon back from my Grave in Defense Position_!"

" _I will send Thor to attack it, then_."

" _Because Stardust Phantom is in my Graveyard, I can activate its effect and subtract 800 points of ATK and DEF to stop your attack_!"

That puts Stardust Dragon at 1700 ATK and 1200 DEF. This won't be enough. He can reactivate Stardust Phantom, but it won't be enough.

" _I have two more monsters, Yusei_ ," Harald sighs, throwing out his hand.

" _I reactivate Stardust Phantom's effect to subtract 800 ATK and DEF_!"

900 ATK, 400 DEF.

" _You can't use that again, my friend. Odin, destroy Stardust Dragon_."

" _I activate the effect of Stronghold Guardian from my hand! By discarding it, I can add its ATK and DEF to Stardust's! Then, I can activate Stardust Phantom's effect again_!"

 _Whew._ 100 ATK and 1100 DEF, but he'll lose the DEF boost at the end of the turn. Stardust still survived, which is the most important part.

Harald still seems unfazed. " _Because I control at least one Divine Beast-type monster, I can summon Jormungardr the Nordic Serpent on your side of the field in Defense Position. When it is in Attack Position, you will be dealt 3000 points of damage_."

"Oh, fuck that," Crow mutters.

" _I now activate my face down, Gleipnir, the Fetters of Fenrir. I'm allowed to add Fenrir the Nordic Wolf to my hand from my Deck. Because I control at least one Divine Beast-type monster, I can summon him on your end of the field. While Fenrir is face up, all monsters on your side of the field will be switched into Attack Position during the Battle Phase. In addition, any damage taken involving Fenrir the Nordic Wolf will be dealt to the opponent, as well. I set a card and end my turn here_."

Yusei draws. He has four SPC and not a lot of room for error. " _I activate my face down, Hope for Escape! By paying 1000 LP, I can draw cards for every increment of 1000 points of difference between our Life Points_!"

He only has 200 LP at this point, but three cards he can draw. What's he working up to, I wonder?

" _I summon Life Gardna from my hand, in Attack Position! Then, by releasing Gleipnir, the Fetters of Fenrir on my field, I can Special Summon D.D. Sprite from my hand_!"

That rids him of the 3000 point nuisance. What's he going to do with the other one?

" _By tuning together Life Gardna with D.D. Sprite, I can Synchro Summon Formula Synchron! And, because Life Gardna was used in a Synchro Summon, I can increase my Life Points by 800_!"

1000 Life Points… and a Tuner Synchro?

" _Next, I activate the effect of Formula Synchron to draw one card_!"

Visibly, everything about his body language suddenly begins to change.

" _With my mind clear, I can break the barrier of speed and Accel Synchro Summon my Shooting Star Dragon_!"

The pit section lights up red; that spot of energy in my stomach pulls down, down, down, and around me, my friends shield their eyes from their marks. I'm looking at Yusei, trying to figure out what's happening, but when I blink, he's— _gone_. Sound erupts from the stands, noises of disbelief and confusion and some anger, but not a second later, he's back: and he's got a bigger dragon.

I have to yawn to force my ears to pop, the pressure is so great. Crow and Jack are on their feet, whooping and cheering. This is… this is his solution to the Synchro killers. A Synchro Summon that's too fast, too airtight, to prevent.

" _I activate the Speed Spell - Speed Force_!" Yusei continues. " _By removing Fenrir, the Nordic Wolf from play, I can add ATK to Shooting Star Dragon's equal to Fenrir's Level times 100_!"

I peek over at Bruno's screen. Fenrir is a Level 10, which means Shooting Star Dragon's ATK will be at 4300. Plenty more than all three Polar gods.

" _Now, I activate the first effect of Shooting Star Dragon! I can reveal the top five cards of my Deck! Each one that happens to be a Tuner monster will grant me one more attack_!"

He reveals Junk Synchron, Nitro Synchron, Turbo Synchron, Sonic Chick, and Scrap-Iron Scarecrow.

" _I've got three attacks! Shooting Star Dragon, destroy all three Polar Gods_!"

Each one shatters with a groaning, and leaves in an ethereal wind. Harald is down to 1900 LP. At the end of the turn, Yusei sets two cards. All three gods return. He loses 800 LP in more bolts of thick lightning, and Harald gets to draw a card due to Loki.

Harald gets to draw one more time to start his turn; there's a new urgency in him. " _I summon Tyr of the Nordic Champions in Attack Position! Now, by Tributing him, I can activate my face down, Odin's Eye, and prevent the Polar gods' effects from being negated this turn_!"

" _I activate Trick Mirror_!" Yusei says. " _By chaining it to Odin's Eye, I can reactivate your trap card in reverse and not only negate your Polar gods' effects this turn, but also have you show me all of the cards in your hand_!"

Harald blanches. Then reveals his hand.

The cards he has in his turn this hand are Wall of Revealing Light, Birthright, Soul Resurrection, Miraculous Descent, and Gleipnir, the Fetters of Fenrir. Nothing in his hand can turn the duel in his favor. Jack and Crow are screaming "GO GO GO, FUCK YEAH!"

" _O-Odin, attack and destroy Shooting Star Dragon_!"

" _I activate Shooting Star Dragon's secondary effect! I can remove it from play to return at the end of the turn in order to negate your attack_!"

" _Then, I send Loki and Thor to attack_!"

" _I activate my face down, Zero Force! I can reduce the ATK of any monsters on the field that have higher ATK than Shooting Star Dragon to 0_!"

That's… all three Polar gods at 0. And, with nothing to do, Harald ends his turn; Gjallarhorn reactivates and prepares to dish out the combined ATK of the Polar gods in damage. The only problem? They're all at 0.

Shooting Star Dragon is back at the beginning of Yusei's next turn, and all of the Polar gods are still at 0 ATK. Harald has no face downs. I don't even think Yusei looks at what he draws. " _Shooting Star Dragon, attack and end this_!"

That single point of heat rises upwards in me—the pressure in my ears becomes so great that I feel like my skull could crack. Then, all at once, it's gone. Whatever struggle between whatever gods… over.

The sounds of winning are familiar, but somehow far away. It feels like forever since we were last here, since I last watched the team jump up out of their chairs to throw themselves at Yusei, all jovial and energized and _proud_. I feel even more distant when Yusei looks over the top of somebody's head at me, and he looks like his soul has escaped him.

Of course. This isn't a time for celebration. We have bigger battles to fight.

When he comes over to the gate, I stand there waiting for him, arms unfolded. Holding him is as heart-wrenching as it is calming.

He rests his head against my neck, in my shoulder, squeezing at my waist, and I squeeze him back—as if to say _I know_. As if to say _it's okay_. As if to say _I love you_.


	61. The Boy From The Painting

" _Day 200 of The CIPHER Project. Electricity has proven to be a very effective way to begin to train Cipher's absorption abilities. She seems almost eager to be disobedient, so there is ample opportunity for me to commence experiments involving electrical charges. In time, I will adjust the levels to higher amounts. I am confident that I will be able to detect if this method_ actually _hurts her. While Cipher has difficulty bouncing back from these episodes, she bounces back quickly and the very fact that she is alive is a testimony to how successfully this experiment builds upon her existing powers._ "

I cut the volume. Sneer at Divine's picture on the screen. Motherfucker.

" _Day 561 of The CIPHER Project. I have almost pushed Cipher to the machine's limit. She remains no different with the energy she retains, or what happens afterward. Her recovery time is the same as it was the first day I began these experiments. Should she continue to take in energy at this rate, I may have to tinker with the shock machine to increase its voltage._ "

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," I mutter. "You're a jackoff, I'm a battery, what else is new."

" _Day 700 of The CIPHER Project. Nothing particularly new to report. We are at a standoff, lately. Though I continue to increase voltage, there is no sign of Cipher's powers doing anything but growing. She must have a breaking point. For now, I will wait for any sign of change._ "

My phone buzzes loudly on the table. I dart for it, scared of waking anyone upstairs. The next video launches into " _Day 789 of The CIPHER Project_ …"

 **Yusei Fudo:** _i can see your lamp on_

I hesitate to type back, pinning my eyes on the video of Divine's face. He drones on about electricity levels.

 **Silvan Levine:** _ill turn it off i guess_

 **Yusei Fudo:** _no my bad dont let me stop you_

 **Yusei Fudo:** _i cant sleep_

 **Silvan Levine:** _thats not good considering u gotta duel tmrw_

 **Yusei Fudo:** _yeah i know_

 **Yusei Fudo:** _what are you up to_

 **Silvan Levine:** _cipher shit_

 **Yusei Fudo:** _oh_

I put my phone back on the desk, on top of my jacket sleeve to keep it from making noise if it buzzes again. As I flick through video after video, I keep glancing back and forth at my phone.

I've been trying to keep my distance from Yusei, to be honest. Maybe not my best idea, but probably the best way to keep myself from getting him alone and confessing. With all that's at stake, with the end of the WRGP so close, and this dimensional thing… it's better to save it all for after it's over. I keep telling myself that it's just _better_ if I'm not acting as a distraction.

After tomorrow, though, I'm free to tell him. And thank gods, because the words are eating me alive. I've been thinking about what to say. About the right way to say it.

My phone lights up again:

 **Yusei Fudo:** _can i help_

 **Silvan Levine:** _u should sleep dude_

 **Yusei Fudo:** _i already told you i cant_

 **Yusei Fudo:** _if i dont do something im just going to toss and turn all night_

 **Yusei Fudo:** _and if you dont let me help im just going to pace in the living room until morning_

 **Silvan Levine:** _jfc_

 **Yusei Fudo:** _can i help_

 **Yusei Fudo:** _please_

 **Silvan Levine:** _sorry dude i was thinkin abt goin 2 bed soon_

 **Yusei Fudo:** _why do you keep doing this_

 **Yusei Fudo:** _youve been avoiding me all week_

 **Yusei Fudo:** _did i do something?_

My stomach twists up.

 **Silvan Levine:** _no_

 **Yusei Fudo:** _im coming over_

 **Yusei Fudo:** _i just want to chat_

 **Yusei Fudo:** _and i know im not crazy youve fully been dodging me so if i didnt do anything wrong i at least want to know whats up_

 **Silvan Levine:** _jfc pls do not_

 **Silvan Levine:** _i can explain another time pls stay home_

Not a few minutes go by before there's a timid knock on the door.

Part of me wants to leave him there and hope that he goes away, but I _know_ that's mean, and it'll make him ask more questions. So I reluctantly get up to answer the door.

His jacket is draped haphazardly around his shoulders, and when he passes me to get into the apartment, he tosses it directly onto my head.

"Excuse me, rude," I whisper, trying not to be loud enough that I rouse Evan or Kiryu upstairs. "And after I let you in."

"Oh, yeah," Yusei retorts. "There's a window, you know. I saw you contemplating leaving me outside."

"Yeah, well… _You_ invited yourself over."

"Yeah, because I'm worried about you and I want to know what's up." He pulls out the other chair at the desk and sits down, arms crossed.

I get caught in a staring contest with him for a moment, lips pursed and hands balled at my sides, while he presumably waits for me to say something.

I don't. I just head down the ramp, toss Yusei's jacket onto the couch, and sit back down at the desk to continue swiping through video diaries.

"So? What's on your mind?" he presses. "What's going on? Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm—I'm fine."

"You know you can tell me."

"You… You have a lot going on."

"And?" he retorts.

"There's nothing imperative enough that I need to distract you from bigger problems," I say.

"You aren't a distraction," he says. "You being like _this_ is a distraction. If I can help you get through something, then that's something _off_ my mind."

"Yeah, well," I stammer. "This is… different."

"Different how?"

"I… I feel like I'd be putting more on you."

"Oh, please. You'd only be putting more on me if you handed me _yet another_ world-is-ending scenario. I'm fresh out of brain space to gripe about anything else."

"Still! You've got—more important problems."

"You can't tell me this isn't important. Not in a way that makes me believe you," he says. "You doing everything you can to stay away from me means it _has_ to be important."

"I didn't want to worry you!"

"Well, congratulations, because acting like this _does_ worry me." He frowns and slides lower in his chair. "How many diaries do you have?"

"I'm… just over day 800."

"What are you looking for, exactly?"

"I'm… not entirely sure yet," I admit. "Right now I'm just trying to get to the end of the diaries Divine added."

"Any way to know how many days that is?" he asks.

"Well. If a year is 365 days and I was in Arcadia for roughly eight years, that's roughly 2,900 days. So."

"There's no way he was documenting twenty-nine-hundred days on _this_ piece of junk," Yusei retorts. "No offense to your mom, but this is _primitive_. I highly doubt it's got enough memory to manage that amount of video."

"Hey, she was Pre-Med, not a C.S. major. Cut her some slack. It's impressive that she made something that functions this well after twenty-some years at all."

"Okay, fine, yeah, I guess." He sits up a little to look at the code I have typed out on the desktop program. "What is this, Python?"

"Yes. It's been working fine for me so far."

He reaches for the mouse and starts to scroll through it. "No big issues?"

"No. I had Bruno debug me a couple times, but beyond that I've been okay. I have all of the codes I've written saved separately in case I fuck something up, but mostly I've been building off of the same one."

"And you wanted to find, what. The end of its memory?"

"Yes?"

"Mind if I mess with a couple of things?"

"Yeah, sure," I exhale. "Go for it."

He starts adding to my code, clicking in and typing for a bit, then scrolling, clicking in and so on. I lean my head in my hand and watch his face, so serious and determined. His features are so illuminated by the computer screen that I can see where the hollows under his eyes begin, and I wonder if he's even slept at all this week.

"How are you feeling?" I ask slowly. "About… tomorrow?"

"Ragnarok was pretty good, not going to lie," he says. "Jack and Crow came for a fight. I was much less stressed out than I was for Unicorn."

"Well, I'm glad you were less stressed."

"Me too. I'm compelled to hope for the same for tomorrow. That it feels easy, when we look back on it."

"I hope it's easy." I pause. "I wish I could help more."

"You have. Don't forget Team Catastrophe. Plus… You don't know how much peace of mind I have when you're around."

"Oh, please. I have so much going on I'm surprised you're not already sick of hearing about me by now."

He frowns. "I really don't think I'm capable of getting sick of you."

"Well, that's a relief. Feeling's mutual. I couldn't get sick of you if I tried."

"That warms my heart." He goes to run the code, and I peer down into the screen.

" _It is Year 8, Day 78 of The CIPHER Project. I do not know when my next entry will be. Yesterday at 1700 hours, it was brought to my attention that Cipher is missing. I suspect Miss Shimizu, but—I will deal with her insubordination at a later date. Many of Cipher's personal found belongings are missing, but she cannot have gone far on foot. I have sent several teams out to look for her. Little does she know that there is nowhere in this city she can go that I will not find her. When I have her back in custody, whenever that may be, it will perhaps be the perfect excuse to start to put_ _pressure on the use of her energy powers. I have been building her up high enough over these past years that there is no telling of the multitudes she contains. Rest assured, if he has a breaking point, so help me God, I will find it._ "

"What… what did you do?" I ask.

"Just a few more variables and a while loop. If there was a data end, I stopped it at that."

"So he did record until I left," I say.

"It took so little time to run, I feel like he must have only recorded a few times a year," Yusei says. "He added a year marker onto this one, and was counting in by days into that year. Maybe just to cover your milestones."

"It makes sense, if he was sort of just stuck at pumping me with electricity," I say. "I'll go back and find a way to look at the others, but… gods, he was still documenting it right up until the day I left."

"What were you looking for, anyways?" He asks.

"A… a reason."

"For what?"

"For _me_ ," I say. "Why he took me. Why he named me after that failed project. Why he—continued it. There has to be a reason."

"Will it make you feel better if you get one?"

"I… I don't know."

"So why are you looking for one?"

"I want closure," I admit. "I know he's dead. I know that should be the end of it. But if I can understand why C existed, if I can understand all the shit she went through and everything she felt… maybe I can go forward and better understand _myself_. You know?"

"That makes sense." He leans on the desk; his eyes burn a hole in the side of my head. "You are you, Silvan. Divine didn't make you."

"I… know."

"Do you?" He leans closer to me. "I'll acknowledge that C was Divine's making. But you have always _been_ Silvan, even when you didn't know it. Even C always asked questions, always tinkered with things she had, wanted to figure out the way the world worked, always sort of yearned for something new. That is _you_ , Silvan. That's the you I remember from when we were kids, and it's the you I know now."

"Is it really?"

"Yes. And it may be impossible to figure out what Divine really wanted from you, why he called you what he did and why he did all of those things to you, but I do think it might just boil down to an old grudge. A power fantasy. He could have and control you the way he couldn't have your mom. And that isn't your fault—"

"I _know_ it isn't…"

"—but I think you dealt with it in the best way you could have." I hear him scoot closer; I flinch, heat crawling into my face, when he slides his hand along my neck, atop my scar. "You've proven that you're stronger than him, and you've done it _as you_."

I swallow. "Have… have I ever told you why I don't want my memories back?"

His voice is soft, careful, as he murmurs, "No."

"I… try not to get caught up in the past. I don't want to think about it. Truthfully, I feel like if I do have a clean slate, then I don't have to be the person that I inherited. The—the center of whatever it was Divine wanted out of my mother. I knew I had those powers from the beginning, Divine said. Maybe I didn't share them, but… I used them on him, that first night. I was some semblance of the fighter he wanted before he wiped me clean. If I have the first Silvan back, will she shape who I am now? Would she have shaped C? Would I be—more bitter that I had missed all of that?"

"Are you bitter?"

" _No_ ," I admit. "I like who I am. It's taken me some time to get here, but I like _me_. I like the control I have. I like feeling everything that's rattling around inside me. That power. It reminds me I'm alive. That—that despite it all, I am here and strong. And _wanting_ the past, wanting all that I was—I think it would mess that up."

"So this, this thing with Divine. This closure. What is it really for?"

"I… I treat C like this separate person because I don't like to think about her being me. She was so soft. And afraid. And I don't ever want to be like that again. And I feel like if there's proof that C had a bigger purpose than just being a placeholder, than just taking in energy… maybe I'll be better at admitting that she _is_ me."

He rests his palm against the side of my face, fingers curling under my ear. "Being afraid isn't bad. It's human. Even so, C _was_ strong, Silvan. Afraid _and_ strong. I saw it from the moment I met her. She was always ready to run, always ready to go. It takes strength to _want_ so badly to leave something like Arcadia, and the moment an opportunity came, she took it. And she wasn't going to let it go, no matter what. Not even in that tiny elevator."

I swallow. "I… think about that day a lot."

"You protected yourself back then," he says. "You didn't know how to show force like Divine did yet, so you just made yourself invisible. That's not frailty. Power is not just spitting fire or throwing lightning."

"Then what is it?" I whisper.

"It's saying _no_ ," he answers. "It's demanding to be called 'C' rather than 'Cipher.' It's coming _back_ to meet me the day after being punished. It's learning to drive a duel runner in a day so you can use it to get away. It's standing between your best friend and her family. It's—jumping into hell to come and get me when you barely even knew me."

"You didn't know me either," I say, "and still, you let me out."

"No, I didn't know you," he responds. "But tapping you on the shoulder that day was one of the best decisions I've ever made."

He's—very close now. Leaned in toward me. Close enough that I can see his eyelashes, can see the computer screen reflecting pale blue in his eyes. His hand still rests on my face; I raise trembling fingers to touch him, too.

I've _never_ been this close to him before—never had cause to touch him like _this_ before.

He's as still as death as I move a fingertip over the mark on his cheek, up from where it cuts into his jawline toward his eye. His breath moves quickly against my fingers in an inhale, and I flinch backward a little.

"It's all right," he says. "No pain. Just—just sensitive."

"Did it hurt?" I murmur.

"What? The mark?" His eyes flicker from my face to my hand, and back. "Worse than anything I've ever felt. They strapped me to a chair and carved it with a laser."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. It happened a long time ago, and besides, it wasn't your fault. It's part of me now and I've gotten used to it." I flinch when I feel his other hand, gentle against my arm. "It's like your tattoos—like a memento. They mean we survived." He turns my arm over and surveys the tattoo there for a long, silent moment. "...why the compass?"

"I thought it was nice looking," I say. "And… I guess, now, I kind of like the irony of trying not to lose direction. Even though that's not exactly how a picture of a compass works."

"It's the thought that counts," he replies. "It's definitely my favorite."

"Why's that?"

"It's pretty." He swallows. "It's more detailed than the others."

"I had more time, that day," I say. "Divine was out on some day trip. I was in the chair for four or five hours, I think."

"Hm." He runs his thumb over it. It's almost a caress—a careful, reverent sort of touch. I don't know if it's the feeling, or just the knowledge that he's here and touching me and I know what this softness _means_ , but—I shiver.

He inclines his head a little. "Cold?"

"No," I admit. "That just… felt nice."

He looks up at me through his eyelashes, and I hold his gaze for a long moment. The only sound comes from the computer's fan working.

"I like when you look at me like that," he says.

"Like what?"

"Like I'm just _me_."

"You are _just you_ ," I retort.

"No," he says softly. "Crow and Jack pretend I'm too good for them. Aki thinks I'm a liberator. Rua and Ruka act like I'm the perfect role model. I don't even _know_ what Evan thinks of me anymore. But I don't have to live up to anything with you—you expect me to be me, and that's all."

"I only want you," I answer, and the second I say that, I feel inclined to clarify. "I-I mean… you can exude all that stuff. But they're not character traits. They're just results of you being you."

"What does that mean?" He asks. "Being me?"

"You just. You're you," I emphasize. "You're smart and compassionate and wildly irresponsible—"

" _Wow_."

"—and you get so hung up on some things that you can't let them go until you're satisfied," I finish. "You're just you. And you're perfectly okay like that."

"You… really have a lot of faith in me that I don't deserve."

"You're _good_ , Yusei," I hear myself say. "Even if you don't think so. You are good."

"If we lose tomorrow… if I let everyone down…"

"You won't."

"I almost did," he says. "I almost gave it all up to Andore." He scowls. "I nearly let everyone down, and I almost consigned you to actually having to go out with him."

"Oh, don't be like that." I reach for him, trying not to let my hand shake when I incline his chin to look at me. "You _didn't_ lose. You've never let any of us down, and you wouldn't have if you had lost. And even then, I never would have gone out with Andore."

"Oh, well, why not? He's. Pretty. And. Famous."

"Wow, that was excruciating for you to say," I retort. "Look, just because I slept with him doesn't mean I like him."

His eyes are almost black in this low light. "Isn't that a requirement of sleeping with someone?"

"We've been over this. I just wanted to feel something."

"But not… that."

"Well, no." I swallow. "Not for him."

I watch whatever's in his eyes, that thing I've seen so many times before that I didn't understand until now, flicker.

I'm really doing this. Oh, gods, I'm _really_ doing this.

"The only person that really ever reminds me how to feel anymore," I hear myself say, "is you."

" _Silvan_ ," he whispers—only barely audibly. I can feel his breath on my fingers as I trace the shape of his mouth.

I follow that unspoken line that's been strung up between us for some time now, and I lock my hands into his hair and kiss him.

One second. Two. Three.

He doesn't move at all beneath me, and as I draw back out of one parts curiosity and two parts fear, I catch his eyes and heat rushes into my cheeks. They're so dark I can't separate the pupil from the iris. As I prepare to blurt some sort of half-assed apology, he rumbles to life.

His hands blaze up my back, between my shoulder blades, pulling me towards him until I'm breathing his air again.

I drag my fingers up his shoulders from his triceps, across the back of his neck, everywhere I've been wanting to touch for I don't know how long. He's strong and steady underneath my hands. I'm short of breath as I rake my hands through his hair, pulling myself closer, opening my mouth up to his.

I don't know how long I've wanted to do this. I just know that it feels like I've been working up to it for a very long time.

We pull apart like we're coming up from water for air; I'm suddenly hyper-aware of his forehead pressed against mine, my arms looped around his neck, and that somehow during that chaos of us, I've ended up borderline straddling him.

"Did that just happen," he breathes, not a question, but not quite a demand, either.

He kissed me back, _he kissed me back_. I ball a hand into his shirt to anchor myself, afraid of yanking too hard on his hair. "I… I'm sorry. I should have… asked first."

"Don't apologize." I feel his breath on my lips, heady and cool. "Not for that. Not _ever_."

I swallow, heat and emotion crawling upward in me, into my head, into my throat. "I, um. I have. Something I need to tell you."

His hands press to my face, fingers curving up to brush away the beginnings of tears on my cheeks. "Can I tell you something first?"

"Okay," I whisper.

"I look at you," he says, "and I feel like I'm dying. Like every time you—you smile, or you speak, or you touch me, and I don't say anything about what you make me feel, it's killing me more and more."

I have to drag my voice out of the furthest reaches of myself to respond. Everything in me has gone so, so quiet. "...why didn't you ever say something?"

"I wasn't going to watch you hurt and then risk putting more on your shoulders. You've had far too much to feel lately and I—I didn't want to be selfish. And shove that on you, too. I think I would have waited for the rest of my life, if I thought it was necessary."

"I-I… I would've made the space," I say, tears blurring up my view of his face. "I would've crowded all the shit in me backward any day of my life if it meant I got to be with you."

"I didn't think you would feel the same."

"I-I thought it was going to come off like I just wanted you in my bed."

"Do you?"

"N-No. I want you, but… not like that. Not right now. I don't know if I've ever wanted anybody like _this_."

"Like how?"

"Like _lasting_. Like feeling something that fills me up longer than one evening. I don't know."

His smile glints in the low light. "What a compliment."

My cheeks burn. I press my forehead into his shoulder so I don't have to look at him. His hand skims through my hair.

I don't know—what this means for us. If it means anything, other than this uneasy, cloud-nine sort of feeling in my stomach telling me that he feels something, too, that he kissed me back. That this boy who let me out and held me up until I could stand on my own wants me, too.

Though my voice trembles a little, I say what I wanted to the night he took me to Elysium. The first time I think I knew.

"Will you stay with me?" I murmur.

"Yes," he says softly. "To the grave."


	62. High Tide

I feel… warmth, from somewhere, scattered across my face. My eyelids feel heavy and it takes me a second to open them—a couple seconds more to gather everything I see into focus.

When I see Evan—canted sideways, but smiling like a buffoon—I flinch so hard that I jostle my head against the arm of the couch. My brother laughs and takes a long drink from his black and white checkered coffee mug.

"What's your deal?" I say; my voice sounds scratchy.

"No deal," he says, his nose still in his mug. "Just warn me next time you plan on having a sleepover, 'kay?"

"Sleepover? What—what are you…" I twist a little and my forehead smacks right into Yusei's. The two of us jolt apart, complaining.

"I'm sorry! Did—did I wake you up?!" I clamor.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," he's groaning, hand pressed over his eyes.

Evan's still in a fit of laughter, but now he's halfway across the living room. "There's coffee on the stove after you two recover from your concussions."

Gingerly, I reach to touch the crown of his head. "I'm sorry," I whisper again. "I… forgot you were there."

"It's okay, I'm fine." He's laughing now, which makes me feel a little bit better. "Are you all right?"

"Fine," I say. "I'm…" he peeks out at me through his fingers, and it makes me forget what I was going to say. His eyes are so beautifully clear.

"You slept through the night," he murmurs.

"Did—you?"

"I think so." His arm slips around my waist. "Feels like I did."

"Good," I breathe. He's close enough to me that I can feel his chest pressed to mine, his breath on my nose.

"What?" He murmurs.

"I've just. I've never woken up next to somebody before."

"Always gone by morning, hm?"

"Yeah."

"Well, just to clear things up," he says, a smile brightening his face, "I won't be offended if ever I wake up and you're gone."

"I—I wouldn't leave you," I stammer.

That smile widens a little. "I know."

"Oh," I breathe.

For a second there's nothing but still air between us, and then he reaches to angle my chin toward him. "Can I?"

"Mm," I say, even though I'm not totally sure of what he's asking.

He pauses, fingers still gentle around my chin, and I feel his chest rising and falling against me for a second before he closes the gap between us.

The tension in me seems to uncoil all at once, and I slide trembling fingers into his thick hair to hold him closer as I kiss him back. I've never been kissed good morning before. I angle myself closer to him, twisting my other hand into his shirt, and his chest stutters with laughter.

"Whoa there," he murmurs.

"You kissed me," I retort.

He pulls back to press a kiss onto my forehead and I find myself searching for him again.

"One more," I breathe. "Come here."

His breath puffs against my face as he laughs, but he slips his hands behind my neck and kisses me again, so gently that some new, blissful warmth runs up and down my spine.

"Awake now?" He murmurs.

"You have—no clue how long I've wanted to do that," I say.

"No, I probably have a pretty good idea."

That thought, that maybe he's been fantasizing about kissing me like I have about him, drudges up a smile.

"What?" He asks, a smile in his voice, too.

"I'm—happy. You just…" I press my hands to his shoulders, relishing the warmth of his skin. "I'm happy."

"Me too," he murmurs. "Now, not to ruin the moment, but we have somewhere to be."

"Oh, that's right. Gotta save this dumb unlucky city again."

His smile falters a little.

I reach to touch his face; it used to be such a small gesture, but after last night, it holds much more weight. "We'll all be there. And Crow and Jack will throw their weight in. I promise it won't just be you."

Looking nervous—and like he wants to say something—he kisses my hand and stretches up off of the couch. I roll to my feet after him. He picks at a thread on his shirt. "I need to change."

"Okay. Me too."

"Meet back up in ten, fifteen? We'll head out together?"

"Yeah, I can do that."

"Super." He snatches his jacket off of the couch and starts off, then stops suddenly, like he forgot something. He darts back toward me, swipes me bodily up off of the ground, spins me around, and sets me back down. Swallowing a smile, he plants a fast, hard kiss on my cheek and begins back up toward the front door.

"Sorry, I, ah…" he's halfway out the door already. "I'm just. Feeling good."

"It's okay. Me too."

He's fighting hard to keep down that smile as he heads out the door. I feel like I could start flying.

It takes me all of five minutes to get dressed, brush my teeth, and fix my hair. Back downstairs, Evan's got a cup of coffee for me.

He clinks cups with me. "Way to go, champ."

"Oh, stuff it."

He laughs at me.

When Kiryu comes downstairs, dressed, he looks like he knows, too, but he doesn't say anything. When he says hello to me, he just offers me a small smile that feels somehow secret.

Too nervous to really eat anything, I load up my duel runner, finish my coffee, and wait for Evan and Kiryu to finish righting themselves before I pull out into the alley.

The sky is clear, but it feels like a calm before a storm. I know what is to come today.

We meet the guys and start toward the circuit together. I keep my eyes pinned to Yusei's duel runner. Looking at him, at anything to do with him, feels somehow brand new.

At the stadium, we meet Aki and the twins. They're here early, and they look as nervous as I feel. We gather to begin getting ready, starting up the computers and everything. The air feels grim. It's electric with fear and motion and a horrible lack of sound.

Yusei lingers beside me for a long time. I don't know what I was expecting of our relationship today, at this point, now that we're how we are, but he does sit with me, his hand upon mine. I watch his face as he watches the stands.

"What are you thinking about?" I murmur.

"You," he murmurs. "Always you."

Heat crawls into my cheeks. "No, seriously."

"Well, I am always thinking about you. Wondering how you are. But I'm also thinking about everything we have to do today. So I'm trying not to think about that by thinking about you instead."

I touch my warm cheek. " _Oh_."

He brushes some of my hair behind my ear. He's so close. I would kiss him, but... I don't know if this is something we can tell people yet.

We sit together in some full, intimate silence while the stadium begins to come back to life. It still feels like the first time, even though I know it's the last. Before I know it, everything is roaring and shaking, horns are going off, confetti is shooting everywhere, and Jack is heading off to get himself ready to head off.

Team New World sits a few pit sections away from us: Lucciano, Placido, and José. Three strangely dressed men with strange demeanors. Lucciano has risen and is heading around the back of their pits section, presumably to load himself up on his duel runner for the first section of the duel.

The three of them are a strange picture. They look like a mismatched puzzle. Patches on the same piece of clothing. Not quite… right. And yet, they are the three men with the most important job in the city, and also apparently want the world to end.

Sidebar: one time with this problem was bad enough. But twice is horribly uncanny.

Evan leans into his mic. "Testing."

" _Loud and clear,_ " Jack's voice says. " _Let's squash some bugs._ "

At the beginning of the countdown, the stadium hushes. I don't think I've ever heard this kind of quiet, heavy with anticipation. I know the feeling, though. While this is one of the biggest events Neo Domino has ever had… the audience doesn't know what's at stake. Why my friends _must_ win.

" _I'll start by summoning Dark Resonator in Defense Position_!" Jack tosses his first draw across his duel disk. " _Then I'll set three cards and end my turn_!"

Lucciano was there on the highway, that day so long ago. That day that Yusei made Rua the duel board, and Rua took a dive off of the side of the barrier. The day I touched a god.

My fingers twitch. A realization hits me like lightning.

" _I summon Sky Core, in Defense Position! Then I'll set three cards, as well!_ "

As the turn ends, Jack takes another draw, then activates a face down. " _I play Dimension Switch!_ "

Dimension Switch is going to let him summon a high level monster, likely without sacrificing anything first. To my right, Yusei shifts his weight uneasily.

" _This card will allow me to remove Dark Resonator from play! Then, when you have a monster on my field and I don't, I can summon up Gear Changer_!"

That'll give him Red Demons Dragon, but I expect that he won't stop there.

"V _ia the effect of Gear Changer, I can increase its level by the level of your Sky Core! Then, by destroying Dimension Switch, I can bring Dark Resonator back for a Synchro Summon_!" He tosses the cards over his duel disk. " _By tuning together Dark Resonator and Gear Changer, I can Synchro Summon my one, my ultimate, Red Demons Dragon_!"

A roar rips through the crowd at the same time a pain rips up my arm. Yusei reaches over with his unmarked arm to touch my hand.

"Again?" He asks.

"I know why," I tell him. "I can't believe I didn't realize it sooner."

Aki peers over my shoulder. "What happened? How… How do you feel it?"

"Do you remember the day we went after the twins?" I ask. "When Lucciano first appeared. Rua fell off of the side of the highway."

"Yeah, the Crimson Dragon caught him," Yusei says slowly. "I remember."

"The Dragon didn't _just_ catch him," I say. "It dropped him right in my arms."

"Oh gods," Aki breathes. "You touched it. Didn't you?"

I nod.

Yusei, next to me, exhales slowly. "Are you trying to tell me that you… _Internalized_ … a part of the _Crimson Dragon_?"

The audience roars. It's so sudden that my whole body jerks.

"Jack summoned Scar-Red Nova Dragon," Evan, next to me, fills us in. His voice hushes a bit when he says, "What does it feel like?"

I shake my head. "I… don't know if I have control over it. Last duel, it––it moved."

"It _moved_?"

"Normally I can control where I store the energy I have," I say. "This… This is the first time it's ever been active. And it feels like it has a mind of its own."

Yusei, his eyes fixed on the field, says, "Let me know when it happens next. Where it goes, what it's doing."

I'm not sure if that will help anything, or if he's looking for a specific answer, but I don't say anything else. Back on the field, Jack's sent Scar-Red Nova to attack Lucciano's Sky Core, but Lucciano flips a face down.

" _Twin Vortex_!" He declares. " _I can use this to destroy a monster on your field as long as I destroy a monster of my own_!"

" _Not going to work, unfortunately! Scar-Red Nova Dragon can't be destroyed by card effects_!"

"It's got the same effect," Yusei mutters.

"What effect?" I ask.

" _Well, that's fine_!" Lucciano calls. " _The effect of my Sky Core activates! When it's sent to the Grave, I can summon up Meklord Emperor Skiel_!"

"That's a big ass monster," Crow laments.

"They've all got one," Bruno, down the line, answers. "Skiel, Wisel, and Granel."

"I've fought them," Yusei answers, partly through his teeth. "I can't decide which is the worst."

"Looks like Skiel is made up of five separate monsters," Bruno continues, bending further over the diagnostics screen. "Meklord Emperor Skiel, Skiel Top, Skiel Attack, Skiel Carrier, and Skiel Guard. The four latter monsters are what give the big thing its ATK. Taking out Emperor Skiel is the only way to make the whole thing crumble. Taking out the others will only decrease the whole thing's ATK."

"Good to know," I answer.

" _Scar-Red Nova Dragon, replay your attack_!"

" _Ah ah ah! As per the effect of Skiel Guard, I can negate your attack_!"

" _Fine, then! I play my face down, Power Pressure! If an attack of mine was just negated, I can deal you 1000 points of damage_!"

Lucciano's LP counter ticks down to 3000. He flips another card. " _I play Infinite Aura! This card gains Aura Tokens for every 100 points in damage I take_!"

"Which gives it ten counters," Yusei voices. "Bruno, can you check the effects of that card?"

"Gaining counters looks like its only effect."

"Wonder what he's planning with them," Crow says.

"My first guess is an easy Special Summon," I say. "It's a common counter feature."

Yusei breathes out hard. Jack's turn ends.

" _I activate Skiel's Special Effect! Once per turn, I can absorb a Synchro Monster on your field_!"

"Whoops, forgot about that," Crow says.

"Jack's effect," I respond.

" _I can activate Scar-Red Nova's effect in return_!" Jack calls. " _I can remove it from play until my End Phase and negate one attack this turn_!"

"Nice," Yusei murmurs.

Seeing that there's nothing else to do, Lucciano sets one card and ends his turn. Scar-Red Nova Dragon flashes back onto the field in a gust of red wind.

Jack draws. I slide my fingers over the hand Yusei has leaned on the desk. He glances at me, then loosens his grip on the table so I can slip my fingers into the spaces between his. A small gesture with a lot of weight.

" _I summon Force Resonator in Attack Position! By sending it straight to my Graveyard, I can prevent you from activating any card that targets a card of my choice: Scar-Red Nova Dragon_!"

"He's making provisions," Aki muses. "I hope he doesn't expect to lose Scar-Red Nova."

"I guess it's always good to take precautions," I breathe.

" _Scar-Red Nova Dragon, destroy Meklord Emperor Skiel_!"

" _I activate my face down, Infinite Prison_!" Lucciano calls. " _This card will take Sky Core in my Graveyard and place it into my Spell and Trap Card Zone_!"

"Huh?" Crow asks.

The attack goes through, clearing Skiel off of Lucciano's field and bringing his LP down to 0. Remaining on Lucciano's field are Sky Core and Infinite Aura, which suddenly has _40_ counters on it.

"That shouldn't have been that easy," Yusei gripes.

"Sky Core," I say. "Why did he place Sky Core?"

"When destroyed, it summons Skiel," Bruno chimes, checking the diagnostics screen.

"Placido has Wisel, doesn't he?" I ask. "...does he have a Core?"

"Wise Core," Bruno confirms.

"He isn't going to try to summon all three Emperors, is he?" I say.

Placido rips out of the Team New World pits with a sound like a sword unsheathing.

"I don't understand why he survived our duel," Yusei mutters. "He was torn in _half_. I _saw_ him."

"He was the Riding Roid guy," I say. "Maybe the Placido you dueled was _also_ a Riding Roid."

"Okay, then who's to say this one isn't too? Are Lucciano and José also Roids?"

"I… guess we'll get to that when we get to it."

Placido has drawn, and has already summoned his first monster. " _Wise Core, in Defense Position!_ "

"Wisel on the first turn," I mutter.

" _I activate the Speed Spell - Lightning Rod! With four or more Speed Counters on my field, I can destroy a monster on the field! I choose Wise Core_!"

"Seems like he's trying to make up for Lucciano," Aki says. "Quickly summoning Wisel this way?"

"I'm not sure about that," Yusei replies. "This feels… wrong."

" _Upon the destruction of Wise Core, I can summon Meklord Emperor Wisel_!"

The minute the monster bursts onto the field, Yusei moves away from the desk and just starts to pace. I watch him for a moment, stomach jumping. I have to force myself to look at the field again.

" _Now, I activate Wisel's effect, to equip a Synchro monster on your side of the field to my Meklord Emperor and raise its ATK_!"

" _I activate Scar-Red Nova Dragon's effect! I can remove it from play until the end of the turn and negate one attack_!"

" _Fine, then! I activate my face down, Infinity Barrage! I can deal you 400 points in damage for every monster on my field_!"

Wisel Top, Wisel Attack, Wisel Carrier, Wisel Guard, and Meklord Emperor Wisel times 400 damage is 2000—that much lost, and that much left.

Placido sets two cards, and at the end of his turn, Scar-Red Nova returns to Jack's field.

Crow groans. "Yusei, can you quit pacing like that?"

"Can't," he mutters, without looking at Crow.

I exhale and stand. "Come on." I reach for him, grab onto both of his wrists, and lead him to my chair, keeping my hands on his shoulders in the attempt to keep him still. "It's okay to be antsy. But pacing so insistently isn't going to help you or anybody else."

"Sorry," he mutters.

I thread my fingers into his hair and rest my chin on top of his head. There's some comfort in this. That I have this new permission to touch him, that it means something different than it did yesterday. I can feel Crow eyeing me, but I try not to look at him for fear of starting a conversation less important than what's going on on the track.

In the meantime, Placido tries to prevent an attack by sacrificing Wisel Guard and replacing it with Wisel Guard 3. Jack sends Scar-Red Nova to destroy Wisel Guard 3, and I'll assume that he did something to inflict Piercing Damage, because he takes the Defense Position monster out and leaves Placido at 500 LP.

"Infinite Aura's counters keep rising," Bruno says. "It's got 75 now. I wonder what that entails."

"But what's he using it for?" Aki groans. "Ugh, this is driving me nuts."

"Yeah, I second that," Crow adds. "I'd get rid of it, if I were Jack."

"Seems like a good idea," I say.

" _I play my trap, Echo Mirror_!" Placido calls out. " _I'll draw a card and reveal it—if it's a monster, you take damage equal to the monster's level times 300_!" He draws, and brandishes the card. " _Wisel Attack 3_!"

A Level 3 monster: 900 points.

Shards of glass fly towards Jack. He's down to 1100 LP. Looking disgruntled, he sets a card face down.

I exhale. "Anyone else think Placido is a very bitter guy?"

"Yes," Yusei says immediately. "I think he must be playing for kills."

"What makes you say that?" Aki asks.

"I've fought him before—he beats his own drum a lot of the time, and he can't really resist trying to win by himself."

"Sounds a little like Jack," Crow mutters.

"Yeah, but Jack learns sometimes."

All Placido does this turn is set two cards face down. Then his turn ends.

"I wonder if he answers to anybody," I say. "Like. All of them, really. Are they the big bads, here?"

"Uh, we'd better hope so," Crow retorts.

Yusei shifts uneasily under me. "...I think that Infinite Aura card is bad news."

Evan, next to us, leans into his mic. "Hey, Champ? Not to tell you how to do your job, but. Try to destroy Infinite Aura this turn. We've all got a bad feeling about it."

" _Got_ _you_."

At the start of his turn, Jack sets a card. " _I activate my face down, Synchro Sonic! If I control at least one Synchro Monster, I can destroy one card on the field! I'm choosing Infinite Aura_!"

" _I activate Infinity Guard Formation! I can negate the effects of a trap card and destroy it by negating the effects of all Effect Monsters on my field_!"

"He gave up Wisel," I murmur, "for the trap?"

"It's definitely important," Yusei groans. I breathe out slowly into his hair. I really don't know how to make him feel better.

" _Scar-Red Nova Dragon, go in for an attack_!" Jack shouts. That momentum destroys the last of Placido's LP, but Placido doesn't seem to be done.

Infinite Aura's counters have risen to 80, and Placido flips over a face down called 'Infinite Prison'. " _With this card, I can take Wise Core from my Grave and equip it into my Spell-and-Trap Zone_!"

"He did the same thing as Lucciano," I mutter. "They must be trying to give José the opportunity to summon Skiel, Wisel, and Granel."

"But Infinite Aura," Yusei complains.

"I know," I exhale.

José is on the track, now—he's much bigger, and _far_ more imposing than the other two. My fears about how this is going so far, how this can't _possibly_ be this easy, make me think that José will be the one to cut through us like butter.

"Should I um." Crow bounces uneasily. "Should I be on deck just in case?"

"Maybe," Yusei says. "Wait a little longer."

José summons 'Grand Core' in Defense Position. " _I activate Explosion Blast, to trigger Grand Core's special effect! When destroyed, I can summon Meklord Emperor Granel_!"

A spike of heat runs up my arm, and Yusei flinches violently. Crow, rubbing at his marked arm, cranes down to rub at Aki's, as well. She kisses him on the cheek on his way back up.

"Uh, guys," Bruno chimes. "I've figured out what Infinite Aura is for."

I look at him. "What?"

He opens his mouth to answer, and is interrupted by José playing a Speed Spell. " _Takeover_!"

"That Spell," Bruno gulps, beginning to read what must be a description on the operating computer. "Select a face-up card on the field that has Counters on it—destroy it, and for each Counter it's got, the user gains 100 LP."

A group sigh moves through us. "That fucking thing has 80 Counters."

"8000 LP," Yusei exhales. "Now he's got 12000."

Crow whines unintelligibly.

José sets a card. " _Granel, attack Scar-Red Nova Dragon_!"

" _I activate Scar-Red Nova's special effect! By removing him from play until the End Phase, I can negate an attack this turn_!"

" _I activate the effect of Granel Top—Once per turn during the Battle Phase, I can absorb a Synchro Monster on the field_!"

"Oh, crap!" I say. Crow rises from his seat and sprints around towards where his duel runner is parked in the duel lane.

The attack hits Jack _hard_. It reduces his LP to 0 and sends his duel runner tottering and smoking back towards us. Granel's up at 15500 ATK, which will mean _hell_ for Crow.

"Was that... Real?" Aki breathes.

"Yes," I whisper. That charge in the air… it was a _lot_. There's a silence as Jack passes the patch to Crow, seeing him off, and then drags himself back into the pits.

"I'm fine," is the first thing he says.

I turn toward him, but Aki gets to him first. Lip curled, she demands, "Helmet _off_."

Wincing, he wrenches his helmet from his head. Blood crawls down his face. I see his jaw clench.

Aki, voice burning, says, " _Sit down_. I'm going to go find you a medic."

"I'm fine!" He insists. "It's just blood! Wow, people have that!"

"You sit your ass _down_ , Jack."

He blinks hard. Obediently, he sinks into a chair. Aki tears off down the back hallway to look for a medic.

Jack looks toward Yusei, as if to call for help, but Yusei gives him a dull look back as if to say, ' _yeah, good luck_.'

Meanwhile, Crow has begun his section of the duel against José. " _I activate the effect of Speed World 2! By paying ten Speed Counters, I can destroy a card on the field! I choose Meklord Emperor Granel_!"

" _I play Infinity Wall_!" José counters. " _All effects that would destroy a monster this turn are negated_!"

Crow accepts that, then plays on. " _I summon Blackwing - Steam the Cloaked, in Attack Position! When there are Blackwing monsters on my field, I can Special Summon Blackwing - Bora the Spear from my hand! And, by removing them both, I can summon Blackwing - Aurora the Northern Lights!_ "

That's a Level 10; now a Level 7 because of Northern Lights' Level reduction effect. No doubt Crow's paving his way toward Black-Winged Dragon. How many more turns will he last, though? I'm still suspicious about how quickly Lucciano and Placido lost.

" _Since Steam the Cloaked is no longer on my field, I can also summon a Steam Token! And by removing Blackwing Armor Master from my Extra Deck, I can increase Northern Lights' ATK to 2500 and have them trade effects until my next Standby Phase!_ "

I've seen this before. "Is he trying to use Wedge Counters again?"

"Seems like," Yusei says, but the inflection in his voice says he doesn't have high hopes for the plan.

" _Aurora the Northern Lights, attack Granel!_ "

" _I activate the effect of my Granel Guard! I can treat the Scar-Red Nova Dragon equipped to it as a face-up Attack Position monster until the end of this turn and force you to attack it!_ "

The attack goes through, and Crow comes out alive––but the Wedge Counter that Northern Lights puts on Scar-Red Nova vanishes at the end of the Damage Step when Scar-Red Nova returns to the Spell-Trap Zone.

Crow sets two cards. Yusei clenches the side of the desk. Aki comes running back in with a big green first-aid kit and an EMT.

At the start of José's turn, Crow's Steam Token destroys itself. Then: " _I activate the effect of Speed World 2! By paying ten of my Speed Countrs, I can destroy Blackwing - Aurora the Northern Lights!_ "

Before he can attack directly, Crow manages to Special Summon: " _Blackwing - Ghibli the Searing Wind, in Defense Position!_ " Once it's destroyed, Crow's LP still intact, Crow flips a face down. " _I activate Black Wing Revenge! When a Winged-Beast-type monster with 1000 or less ATK is destroyed in battle, I can Special Summon two Blackwing - Black Crest Tokens in Defense Position!_ "

"I should go get ready," Yusei mutters. "I really feel like I should go get ready."

"You're overly antsy and it's affecting your decision making skills," Evan says. "Wait a little longer. Trust Crow."

"I _do_."

" _Now, I activate my second face down, Blackboost!_ " Crow calls. " _I can draw two cards if I control at least two Blackwing monsters!_ "

He's looking for something, maybe trying to stack his hand… I'm not sure. But José just de-equipped Scar-Red Nova again.

" _Due to the effect of Granel Attack, I can not only de-equip Scar-Red Nova Dragon from Granel this turn, but I can also send it to inflict piercing damage!_ "

The attack rattles in my teeth. That energy, that flare of Crimson Dragon in me, coils like an uneasy snake. Crow is down to 1300, and José sets one card.

" _I'll begin by tributing my Black Crest Token to summon Blackwing - Hillen the Tengu-wind in Defense Position! Then I'll set two cards face down and end my turn!_ "

Gods, I hope he's not out of options. If at least one of those facedowns isn't good, it could be over for him.

José draws. " _I activate the effect of Granel Attack to return Scar-Red Nova Dragon to my field as a Synchro monster!_ "

Yusei pops up out of the chair, grabbing for his helmet where it sits across the desk. I stumble backward to keep from getting whacked by the chair as he shifts it backward.

"G-Good luck," I stammer as he starts away. On his way past me, he pauses, catches my eye, and reaches to tuck a piece of my hair behind my ear. Heat scores up my checks. Oh, how even simple gestures have changed.

Back on the field, Scar-Red Nova destroys Hillen the Tengu-wind: and Crow is down to 100. There's some kind of pause, as if they're both waiting for something. Then Granel swoops in and attacks directly.

" _Hold on_!" Crow talks fast, like he's trying to outrun the duel-end procedures on his duel runner. " _I activate Hillen the Tengu-wind's special effect! I can bring it and Ghibli the Searing Wind back to my field in Attack Position! And, I activate my face down, Urgent Tuning! This card allows me to Synchro Summon right here and right now! Come on out, my Black-Winged Dragon!_ "

And with that, Crow's out. He fans smoke out of his face on his way back to the pits. Once there, he gives Yusei the patch and his cards in play, and then Yusei is off.

"Testing," Evan says into the mic.

" _I hear you,_ " Yusei's voice returns.

Aki rushes to help Crow, who's limping, back to where Jack is sitting. When he sits, he makes an audible noise of discomfort, and Aki starts tending to him while the EMT continues to deal with Jack.

Worried, thumbs twiddling, I slide down into my chair and plant my hands on the desk. Yusei is taking his first turn.

"Why… did Crow wait to summon Black-Winged Dragon?" Rua asks from the gate.

"So Yusei could start with it," Evan says.

"So José couldn't have it," I add. I lean in a bit deeper. Yusei's first turn was short: Wave Wall in Defense Position and two face downs.

José draws. " _Your friend is a fool for handing his dragon to me, Yusei! You think you have any chance against me? Against_ destiny _? I'll make you regret your insolence_!"

So much talk about _destiny_. I'm growing tired of this year full of old men claiming that they alone know destiny, or _are_ destiny, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

" _Granel, attack Black-Winged Dragon_!"

" _I activate the effect of Wave Wall!_ " Yusei exclaims. " _I can negate your attack!_ "

" _I activate my face down, Attack Cannon! I can send Granel Attack to the Graveyard to destroy Black-Winged Dragon!_ "

" _Not quite! I activate my own face down, Shadow Impulse! With this card, I can Special Summon a monster in my Extra Deck with the same type and Level as a destroyed Synchro on my field, just as long as its ATK is at 0 and its effects are negated! Stardust Dragon!_ "

So much back and forth… it's one of the biggest ingredients for an exciting duel, so the crowd is going absolutely nuts, but no one down here is having a good time. I have faith in Yusei, so much of it, but I can;t stop thinking about what it would mean to lose.

" _I summon Granel Attack 3 in Attack Position to replace my Granel Attack! Now… I activate the Speed Spell - Silent Burn! This card inflicts 300 damage to my opponent for every monster under my control that didn't attack this turn!_ "

That's 1200 points; it hits Yusei hard, but he recovers himself quickly. His duel runner barely even seems to wobble.

" _It's foolish for you to try and continue fighting what is fated!"_ José exclaims. " _There is no hope for you to cling to!_ "

" _You obviously haven't met me, then!_ " Yusei replies. " _I'm not going to let you get away with trying to change everything! There's no way you'll keep any of us from continuing to fight!_ "

" _Is that so? Perhaps it's time to show you what fate has in store!_ " The infinity symbol on the front of José's mask starts to—to _glow_.

Heat careens upwards in me, the Crimson Dragon's energy coiling high up in my chest, and for a moment it hurts so badly that I can't breathe. I look around, dazed, clutching at my stomach, black spots appearing everywhere. Around me, my friends light up in red, and I whirl around to see if Crow, Jack, and Aki are okay. Their eyes venture into the middle distance, somewhere far away, but not for very long. Maybe two or three seconds. Then they're back, looking dazed and sick, blinking wildly.

Crow, who's already bent back in his chair, trying to get comfortable while Aki examines his leg, grits his teeth. " _Fuck_."

Evan stands and starts toward them. "What happened? What was that?"

I don't know how I know. "What… What did you see?"

Aki looks at me, mouth twisted, pain in her expression. "I… I think it was the future."

"That couldn't have been the future." Jack winces as the very confused EMT starts winding bandages around his forehead. "I won't believe that."

Bruno leans into the mic. "Yusei, are you okay?"

" _I'm okay. Tell the others: even if it's true, there's no way I'm letting it happen._ "

Gods, he's a martyr through and through. I stand, still wobbly and a little dizzy, and start toward Crow and Jack to see if I can be of any use. Aki instructs me to hold Crow's leg straight while she rifles through the first aid kit.

"What was it?" I breathe. "What did he show you?"

"I'm… surprised you didn't see it too," Crow manages. "Everything, burning… Those monsters. The Meklords. He said they were a product of Synchro Summons, and that they just appeared one day and destroyed everything."

"They're—from the future." It's not a question.

"...if what we saw is true, I think so." Crow shakes his head grimly. Aki listens as she binds his leg with gauze, thick enough to makeshift something like a cast. "We saw them. Lucciano, Placido, and José, and their memories. Death and destruction and war and…"

"The end of the world." Aki swallows. "The Dark Signers did something like this, too. Illusory stuff."

I nod, remembering.

"What if it isn't an illusion? What happens then?" Jack pats the newly applied bandage on his head. The EMT raises one of Crow's bleeding arms. "If we lose, the city gets destroyed. If we don't, does the world?"

We sit in a second of silence; or as silent as it can get, with the duel still happening on the track.

I peer up at the EMT. "Sorry. You probably think we're insane."

"No, I uh." She shakes her head. "I know who you folks are. Can't catch a break, can you?"

Jack slumps backward on the bench. "Lady, you don't know the half of it."

The crowd roars. I turn to look toward the computer; Evan reaches to crank up the PA volume.

"... _since I drew five tuners, Shooting Star Dragon can attack five times this turn_!"

That's Yusei's voice. There's some finality in it.

" _I activate the effect of Granel Attack 3 to bring Scar-Red Nova Dragon to my field!_ "

" _I activate Synchro Striker Unit! This card allows me to increase Shooting Star Dragon's ATK by 1000!_ "

" _I activate the effect of Granel Carrier! Once per turn, I can prevent a monster on my field from being destroyed!_ "

José should still take damage, though… I think. Scar Red Nova, last time I looked at it, has 3500 ATK, and with the boost from Synchro Striker Unit, Shooting Star Dragon should have 4300 ATK. That should bring José down to 11,200 LP.

" _Shooting Star Dragon, attack Granel Attack 3 once more!_ "

" _I activate the effect of Granel Guard to bring Scar-Red Nova Dragon back to the field_!"

Ah, right. Because the effect that unequips it is null after an attack goes through. But Yusei still has four attacks left. If José has no other protections in place, Yusei can destroy Scar-Red Nova and, based on the research I did about the Meklords, still destroy Granel.

" _Shooting Star Dragon, attack and free Scar-Red Nova_!"

Jack breathes a visible sigh of relief. José appears to have nothing more in place.

" _With my three remaining attacks, Shooting Star Dragon, destroy Granel Attack 3, Granel Top, and Meklord Emperor Granel_!"

That'll do it. Without the Emperor piece, the whole monster falls apart, so… José's field must finally be empty. I do the math in my head—Granel as a whole had 14,700 ATK with Scar-Red Nova. Taking him away would leave Granel with 10,400. Without Granel Attack 3's 1800 ATK, it'd be 7900, and again down to 4100 without Top and Emperor. I estimate that José has somewhere below 4000 LP now, with all of that damage. A perfectly reasonable amount to continue this fight with.

" _I'll set two cards face down and end my turn!_ _We've stopped ends like this before, José, and we're going to stop this one, too!_ "

" _Thanks to you, my field is barren_ — _well, no matter! Aporia will fix that_!"

What's—an Aporia?

"Ho-ly shit!" Evan shouts from the computer. I dash back toward them, leaving Aki and the EMT with Crow. Black clouds have crept into the sky; the hair on my neck stands from the static in the air. José's duel runner has leapt into the sky. Down the row beside us, in the New World pits section, there's no longer any sign of the familiar shapes of Lucciano and Placido. In the sky, green light swirls into the shape of an infinity.

I look away, out of two parts fear and one part horror. On the track, José's duel runner rides still, completely empty, and is suddenly joined by Lucciano's duel board and Placido's duel runner. There's a flash of light; the duel runner suddenly looks bigger, longer, edged on both sides by dragon-looking engines glowing with that familiar Ener-D rainbow.

A figure descends: Massive, clad in white and black armor, encircled by flaming hair and tubes like wires that emerge from its body to connect to the duel runner. A halo-like crown of gold arches across its shoulders in the shape of a sun.

The audience screams. I haven't heard screams like this since the Fortune Cup. People are beginning to race out of the stands. Evan fumbles for his cell phone, presumably trying to get ahold of Kiryu.

Yusei's voice comes through the PA. " _Who… are you people? Who are_ you?"

" _I am Aporia. Guardian of Despair_." Their voice, a horrible triple bass, reverberates around the stadium, around the inside of my skull. " _Please be introduced to my true form: my three pieces, my three aspects, were only fractions of my singular being. You are a fierce and worthy duelist, Yusei Fudo, and now that you have toppled Emperor Granel, the Grand Design is nearly complete._ "

" _What_ — _the hell are you talking about?!_ "

" _No matter. I believe that it is my turn._ "

Lightning scores the track and rattles the ground. The people in the stands are screaming, running, racing for the exit. The MC is trying, poorly, to keep control, insisting he'll maintain his broadcast. Red lights are flashing up in the exit tunnels.

Evan jumps up. "I'm going to get Kiryu."

"I'm—I'm going with you," I choke out.

"The lightning," Aki says, her voice shaky with fear. "Silvan. Be careful."

I look at her and say, "We'll be alright. I'm not afraid."

I race off after Evan, who's almost sprinting. I don't blame him for being worried. Kiryu is alone and bared to the elements up in the stands. Better to have him down underneath the pit section coverings with us than up there by himself.

Evan and I have to race around from the pit section, out of the contender's entrance, and to the front of the stadium, where people are flowing out of the exits in a mass exodus. Evan takes point, and I feel the air shift as he Wastes around us: making a harmless little shield of air about the two of us so that we don't have to elbow through the ravenous spectators making their exit.

Kiryu, I guess, is up in the third tier of seats. When we finally get up the stairs to where he is, he's leaned close up against a wall at the back of the section, beneath an awning. The stands are almost empty. Down below, there's—there's a hole blown in one of the entrance doors to the track. Yusei and Aporia are nowhere to be found.

Evan and Kiryu have their two seconds of reunion, of are-you-okays, before the lightning starts again and we crush ourselves against the back of the seating section.

Kiryu says, "What the hell is happening?"

"This duel was a front for Team New World! For Aporia!" I shout above the gale. "If we lose, the city's at risk for destruction!"

"Apparently if we win," Evan adds, "something _else_ bad will happen!"

"Oh, great!" Kiryu shouts. "Love that! No breaks!"

"Yeah, no kidding!"

We stand there for what feels like forever, waiting for the lightning to stop, or at least lessen. It becomes apparent after that long while that it probably isn't going to let up. We might just be stranded here. I can see the team back in the pits bunking down.

I can't stop thinking about Yusei. What could be going on. There's no doubt he tried to lead Aporia away, somewhere else, in hopes that the damage would follow, but there's still a dark cloud hanging over us.

If we stay here much longer, there's no telling how much worse it'll be. We're still out in the open, and the awnings are all metal. We're in a bad place.

I grab onto Evan's arm. "I think… we should try to go back! We're in worse if we stay here in the open!"

"We won't make it!" he shouts. "If we get struck… I can't Internalize that much!"

"I can," I say, leaning in close, my voice low. "I… I can do it."

His mouth becomes a thin line. "Are you sure?"

"Yes."

He holds my eyes for a long moment, then nods. We start, slowly, back out. I instruct Kiryu to hold onto me by my waist, Evan on behind him. As long as we're all touching, I can grab anything that deigns to hit us.

And, right out of the stadium gate, something does.

I feel that familiar burn, the crackle on my skin, as we get hit. I breathe it in and keep it locked in my stomach. It brings a tear to my eye, the pain is that familiar. It activates an old, hateful instinct in me: the need to lock myself away.

I keep walking.

We're struck two more times before we make it back to the crew entrance. Evan slams the door shut behind us, and I slump against the wall, feeling lethargic and somehow _full_.

Evan puts his hands on my face. "You didn't have to do that."

"I… I came with you just in case you needed me. I was going to do it no matter what."

"Silvan… how do you feel?"

I take a second to let the energy settle, to let it coil around my bones in that endless electrical cycle that has wound through my body for eight years. "Good. I feel good."

He pulls me to my feet and into a hug. I feel his breath in my hair. I feel like I've done something really, finally good.

Back in the pits, everyone is shouting. They're cheers, though, they're not shouts of terror. Jack and Crow are nowhere to be found, but Aki, Rua, Ruka, and Bruno are crouched in the back of the pits section and are listening to Yusei's voice through the PA.

"... _through the second effect of Ghoul Summoner, I can discard a card to summon another Synchro! By discarding two, I can summon both Scar-Red Nova Dragon and Shooting Star Dragon! Two more tokens on Black-Winged Dragon will negate the damage I would take, as well_!"

Scar-Red Nova and Black-Winged Dragon. Crow and Jack must have gone after Yusei to try and lend a hand. I'm sure they can, anyways. I'd say Aporia merging together is already against the WRGP rules.

" _And what next, Signer_?" Aporia demands.

" _Next? By removing Black-Winged Dragon's Feather Counters, I can reduce Meklord Astro Mekanikle's ATK by 700 and inflict the same amount of damage to you_!"

I'm unfamiliar with "Meklord Astro Mekanikle," but this sounds good. This sounds like something to be hopeful about.

" _Black-Winged Dragon, attack Meklord Astro Mekanikle_!"

Aporia prevents Mekanikle's destruction by removing a Meklord from his Graveyard, but this sounds good. The cheers around me get louder and louder.

And Yusei, who has nothing stopping him from continuing to attack, sics both Scar-Red Nova Dragon and Shooting Star Dragon on Aporia. I can hear the screaming—Aporia's—through the PA.

That must be it. 0 LP.

They—they did it. Won. They won. I sink down into my chair, as if all of my energy has left out of the sheer _relief_ of the moment.

Aki, Bruno, Evan, Kiryu, the twins, and I pace around the pits for nearly ten minutes before Yusei, Jack, and Crow come back to us. They pull over just outside of our gate and none of us wait for them to come to us. Rua and Ruka lead the charge, and together my friends and I jump up over the gate to meet them in the middle.

The twins get all of us in this big group hug reminiscent of the one we had after defeating the Dark Signers, where I can listen to all of them breathe and know that they're still alive.

The WRGP commissioners return to the stadium with a bunch of reporters to seek us out, and when they do, they hand Yusei the trophy and ask him, Jack, and Crow a bunch of questions about what just happened and how they're feeling now that they won the WRGP.

I watch them for a long time, looking as excited as little boys. Half of my life, with them, was taken from me, and I'll never get that back—but somehow this feels right. I get back those moments I lost every single day, and there are times like right now where I discover that the girl that lived before Cipher held the same love for these people that I can feel now.

And now that we're out of the woods, I feel it bigger and stronger than I think I ever have.

There's a very brief celebration that conspires after they receive the physical trophy, and it consists of us gathering around each other and laughing, talking, and passing around the trophy. The stands are empty, but I like that it's just us celebrating, because it feels more intimate that way. It feels like the first and last true moment of peace and camaraderie that I have with my friends. Right now, the world is no longer watching. The last time my heart settled this heavily, the Dark Signers hadn't yet been reduced to nightmares.

Carly is here too, and she looks frazzled but as relieved as I feel; she whips out her camera to start snapping pictures, like she can take the happiness I feel and catch it for keeping.

Somewhere in the controlled chaos, Yusei finds me. His expression is so gentle, so quiet, that I feel calm just looking at him.

"Congratulations," I murmur. "You won."

"Yeah," he breathes. "We won."

I throw my arms around him. He shoulders my weight fully, swinging me around in a circle. His breath in my neck makes my whole body feel warm.

When he sets me down, I hold onto his jacket collar to balance myself, and he's smiling, and for what must be the first time I feel absolutely nothing but bliss.

I almost don't realize that we're kissing until I'm partway through it—until I can feel my eyes sliding shut and the brush of his fingers on my cheeks as he inclines my face up toward his.

It's not last night—hungry and uncouth, my hands yanking at his hair, both of us slipping, both of us trying to express something, some emotion, without words.

It's over before I know it—I'm swaying in his direction like I'm anchored to him, like everything in me begins and ends with him.

It's silent around us; his hand lingers on my arm, on my compass tattoo.

Crow whistles. "Hey, get a room!"

Carly is flipping through photos on her camera. "Nobody panic, I have it documented!"

"What did you do?" Jack retorts. "Poor Silvan looks fucking _green_. Are you that bad of a kisser?"

I feel like I'm on a boat; still swaying. Yusei pulls me in against him, as if to keep me from falling over, but I still feel unbalanced even with his rooted, solid form acting as my crutch.

"Do you realize," Crow says, "how _long_ we've been waiting for that? Screw you both for taking your godsdamned time!"

"I didn't realize we were your prime form of entertainment!" Yusei says.

"No, excuse me, but if I had to go _one more day_ with you two looking at each other all _melty_ I was going to kill myself!"

"So does this mean we get 'thank you's for saving your life?"

"Oh, fuck off!"

Suddenly Bruno comes barreling in between us, wielding three entire bottles of champagne. Jack and Crow get hands on two of them and are threatening to fire off the corks at each other. Yusei, the third bottle in one hand and the trophy in the other, waves his hands wildly to get them to stop, but only ends up shaking the bottle enough that the loose cork goes flying off. Then Jack and Crow's are open, too, and there's champagne everywhere, Carly is taking pictures.

It's a beautiful, raucous, sparkling moment. I wish I could freeze it in glass and wear it for the rest of my life, just so I could remember this feeling.

And then, with a terrible, thunderous sound like the breaking of a bone, the sky cracks.


	63. Crescent Moon

Yeager moves us quickly to the Bureau Headquarters, where we meet Mikage and Ushio in a room that looks like a research area. A big muscular man in a suit stands with them. I don't recognize him, but Yusei goes to shake his hand in greeting, so he must be a friend.

Meanwhile, a picture of the thing in the sky has been blown up on a big screen.

"Energy levels are dropping all over the city," Mikage says.

"We're trying to decipher the situation, as you can see," Ushio continues, gesturing to the room of researchers. "Whatever this... _Thing_ is, we've got to stop it from coming closer to us."

"What do you mean?" Evan asks. "Coming closer?"

"It's on a downward spiral toward the Satellite sector. At its current course, it'll collide with the Old Reactor in the B.A.D. District."

A hush falls over my friends. The thing Yusei and Bruno saw is coming anyways. Of course defeating the Directors wouldn't stop it. Some horrible piece of me was never convinced that one duel would be enough.

"Sir," a researcher shouts. "Ener-D levels are at 30%, and still dropping. They'll be at zero in no time."

Suddenly, the lights flicker and shut off. After a few moments, everything turns back on, but in red and orange—we must be on backup power.

"Sir!" Somebody else shouts. "The reactor has begun spinning in the opposite direction!"

"Nothing is operational," I hear someone say. "Everything is offline—we have no incoming data from anywhere in the city."

"Everything runs on Ener-D," Evan voices. "Cars, duel runners, electricity… they'll all be dead. And, if that thing collides with the old reactor, it'll…"

"It'll explode," I murmur.

"That thing is huge enough to take out Neo Domino's entire power grid," Evan agrees. "When it collides, the explosion will be ten times bigger than the first Zero Reverse. It'll take out the whole city."

"Do we have any information on it?" Mikage asks; her voice sounds desperate. "How fast it's falling? How long until it makes contact?"

"At its size and pace," the researcher shouts, "at most, twelve hours."

"We need to evacuate," Ushio says. "Get out of the blast zone."

"That's impossible!" Someone else calls. "With the city's population and a lack of motor assistance, it'd take a minimum of twenty hours to evacuate everyone!"

"Then we'd better get started," Ushio growls.

Yeager goes running. "I-I'll put out an emergency broadcast!"

"I'm going to scramble every Security we have." Ushio is already on his way out of the room. "You should all get out of here, too."

"We're just going to _leave_?" I say hollowly.

"There's nothing we can do, Sil," Evan says. "That thing is massive, and it's taken out all of the power in the city."

" _Nothing_?" I emphasize. "Are you _really_ sure? There's _nothing_ we can do? I live here, Evan, and I don't know about you but I don't want to see it die just like _that_."

" _Technically_ ," Bruno pipes up, his voice very small, "if it's sapping all of the power from the city, it's safe to assume that it reverses Ener-D energy to run. In which case, bringing a wealth of positive Ener-D energy to its center might reverse it _again_. But… we'd… well…"

"Someone would have to actually _get_ there to do that," Evan states. "The _island_ in the middle of the _sky_."

There's an awkward gap of silence. I avert my eyes and catch a glimpse of the security feeds up on the left wall. They're starting to flicker and turn to static at random, presumably as they lose power, but I see three familiar duel runners on one of the still-intact screens for the perimeter of the building. I elbow Yusei, and once I have his attention, I point. "The security feeds. Second row, right side. Third from the top."

"Team Ragnarok," Crow says. His voice is hoarse.

Yusei goes wordlessly, half walking, half running, out the same direction that Ushio left in. The rest of us, along with the guy in the suit, blindly stumble after him until we're outside; the temperature has dropped considerably, to the point that I'm surprised I can't see my breath already.

The trio pulls up in triangle formation, around where the rest of our duel runners are parked. Harald dismounts his duel runner and Yusei sidles up to him. "You're back?"

"Just because we don't agree, Signer," Harald says, "doesn't mean the three of us are going to just _watch_ that thing cleave the earth in two."

"We've come to offer our assistance," Dragan throws in.

"Your duel runners work," Crow observes.

"Our Rune Eyes protect us from the negative energy."

"Which means… does the Crimson Dragon protect us, too?" Ruka asks.

"Yeah! You all should be fully functional!" Brave says. "So, anyways, uh... We're here to help! We know how to reach the Cradle!"

"The… what?" Evan asks.

"The Ark Cradle," Dragan emphasizes. "The name of that _beastly_ thing."

"With the help of our patrons, we are able to summon a road to carry us up to that thing to stop its descent."

"So there's a chance?" Aki asks softly.

"You've got a plan," Yusei breathes—he sounds relieved. "If you're right, and you can help us get up there, then we can reverse the direction of the Cradle and stop the reactors from blowing."

"Unfortunately, it won't be that simple," another voice says.

Yusei's head snaps around in the direction of it, toward his duel runner. As he rounds the nose of it to get a better look at the screen, the rest of us follow, and I stand on my tiptoes to try to get a better look over Evan's shoulder. The screen's been lit up with a face—Sherry LeBlanc.

She's… alive? Back? _Here_? She must have hacked her way into his duel screen somehow. With some functioning _something_. Shouldn't have been too hard, with all of the power in the city out.

"Lady Sherry!" The guy in the suit exclaims. "I-I thought... You were dead!"

"I'm not so easily defeated, Mizogushi, I thought we had been together long enough for you to see that," Sherry replies sourly. I make a mental note—suit guy must be the person I've heard about from both Sherry and Yusei, her father's worker, her surrogate guardian. I wonder where he's been and what he's been doing in Sherry's absence.

"Where have you been, Sherry?" Yusei asks. "We were all wondering—"

"I've no time for small talk. I've only come to dissuade you from entering the Ark Cradle."

"Try me," Yusei says, a bite to his words.

There's something different in her eyes. Something I don't recognize. "Your fate is sealed, Yusei. Once you enter the Ark Cradle, you are destined to die."

There's a long second of silence—a long second where my mind shuts off.

Aki is the first one to pipe up and break the silence. "That's a lie! You're just saying that to stop us from trying to save the city!"

"Yeah, quit playing the enemy!" Crow exclaims. "Who the hell gave you that crap?"

"The master of the Ark Cradle—a righteous being called Z-ONE. He may as well be a god. I say again, Yusei, if you decide to go through with your plans, you will be killed."

 _Z-ONE._ Her—her card? They can't be the same, can they? What the _hell_ is going on?

"Even if that is the truth," Yusei tells her, "that's not going to stop me from trying to do the right thing."

"I suspected you will come to meet me in the end," Sherry says flatly, "even learning of your fate. Always the martyr. As long as I have you here, you should know that when we meet, Yusei, I will be doing everything in my power to kill you."

" _Sherry_ ," Mizogushi breathes.

" _Coward_ ," Jack spits. "Coming to us on a _screen_ —why don't you make death threats to our faces?"

"If you're man enough to come to me, Atlas, I'll be sure to do that."

"You understand that, after this," Yusei tells her hollowly, "you are our enemy."

"I wouldn't have contacted you had I not understood that."

"You hated Yliaster, Lady Sherry," Mizogushi tries.

"I have seen the future, Mizogushi. And I advise that you forget about me and leave the city. My heart has been changed. I am different from all of you now. And, at the end of this judgement day, it is I who will survive."

The screen flickers and goes out.

"Well?" Harald asks, after a long second of silence. "What are our plans?"

Yusei just stares at him.

" _Hey_ ," Crow says. "Why don't you bet your own life?"

Harald sneers at him. "Suit yourself." Flanked by Dragan and Brave, he stalks past our group and into the Bureau building.

We all stand there silently for a second—I feel like nothing around me is real.

"Let's get this straight," Jack says, which shakes me out of my trance. "We're going to fuck up Yliaster, and you're not going to die."

Yusei says nothing.

"I don't know if I want to do this if it's going to end badly," Aki attempts. "If Sherry was right…"

"I kind of agree with Aki on this one," Ruka says. "Maybe it's better to quit while we're ahead. At least, that way… there's a hope of us _all_ waking up tomorrow."

"I-I don't want Yusei to die!" Rua blurts. "Listen to Ruka! We're not going to get anywhere if we go do something that's going to kill you!"

Jack grabs Rua. "Quit your selfish whining! We have a city to save, here! We're not going to let Yusei die!"

"Jack!" Aki exclaims. "Let go of him!"

Jack remembers himself and releases Rua, who's started to sob. He stumbles into Yusei, who stands there for a second with the same blank look on his face before he curls an arm around Rua and kneels down to him.

"Okay," Yusei chokes out. "Everything's going to be okay, Rua."

Something in his voice tells me that he doesn't really believe himself.

It takes a very long time for him to calm Rua down, and after that we go back upstairs and all just mill hopelessly about the Bureau building. Jack looks like he wants to say something, but keeps his mouth shut. Morale is low, and nobody wants to boost it. At some point, I hear Rua and Ruka trying to talk with Aki about the quickest way to leave the city. Evan, Kiryu, and Bruno linger about the researchers trying to use what functional equipment they have to get a better read on the Ark Cradle.

Was Sherry telling the truth? If not, what reason would she have to fuck with us? I can't stop thinking about that, her voice, and the bitter, scary reality that comes with that word. _Death_.

I'm starting to dissociate, and I somehow end up outside on the viewing deck looking out at the monstrosity of metal and rubble in the distance. The horizon around it burns an angry, blistering red, like the sunset knows that this may be the last time it'll see Neo Domino's skyline.

A hand brushes my shoulder, and I almost jump out of my skin.

"I'm sorry," Yusei murmurs. "I didn't mean to scare you."

"Too late," I whisper.

He doesn't meet my eyes as his fingers trace across the roses on my shoulder.

"You know something the rest of us don't," I say softly.

"My father came to me in a vision," he admits. "When—When Bruno and I first saw that thing. He told me not to go near it. That, if I did, something horrible would happen to me. He called it 'a place that leads to the destruction of mankind'."

"You're going to die," I whisper.

"Silvan—"

"Fuck you, don't touch me," I snap, yanking away from him. "Fuck you. You can't make me love you and then go _die_. _Fuck you_."

He exhales sharply at the word _love_. "I wish… we had more time."

"You can't just say that."

"I wish we had more _time_ ," he says, stronger this time. "I'm paying for every day I didn't take my chances and make the call you made last night. This isn't what I wanted and I'm—I'm sorry it's like this."

"You can't just _say_ that," I repeat. "If you go in there and you die, I'm going to live the rest of my life knowing that I couldn't stop you from playing hero just _once_. When it _mattered_."

"If I don't at least try, people will die," he says.

" _You're_ going to die," I say, though the equivalence feels bad. One person for millions—still, only handfuls of whom I know.

"Has that ever stopped me before?" He exclaims. "What about the Dark Signers, I could've died then, but I still did it!"

"I was _there_ , don't tell me about it like I wasn't. And you can't use that as an excuse—the universe is saying that you're not going to survive _this_."

"But what if it's worth it?" He asks. "My life for all of yours? You said it yourself—this is our home, and even if it costs my life, I'm not going to let it get destroyed."

"What if it's not?" I breathe.

"That's a chance I have to take." He clasps my hand in between both of his. "Silvan, I wish we had more time. I wish I had more to say to you other than I'm sorry and I care about you so, _so_ much. This doesn't remotely change anything that I said to you. It doesn't change anything about the way I feel. But this is something I have to do. Let me give you and the others a tomorrow and a place to keep living."

"You can't save everyone," I attempt.

"I can _try_ ," he says. "I'm going to do this, Silvan—and you can hate me, or you can _help_ me. Whatever you choose to do… I'm going to do my best to save this place."

He starts off, away from me, the warmth of his touch gone from my skin, and I hear myself blurt, "What's your plan?"

He turns to me, his expression grateful. "Meet me downstairs, where we're all parked."

Out of the fear that, if I let him go now, this will be the last time I ever see him, I resolve to follow. I slip out of the room and take the stairs down, and it's a few minutes before Yusei joins me; he takes a spare helmet from the compartment in the back of his runner and tosses it to me. Hiraeth sits, dark and dead, between his runner and Crow's, so I assume we'll both just be taking his duel runner wherever. "The Nordics are going to follow us."

"Where?" I ask.

"Home. We're going to talk about their plan."

I jump on the back of his runner as it rumbles to life, and we head back through downtown and towards the thoroughfare. Cars and duel runners have been abandoned in the streets because they no longer work, making for some obstacles we have to circumvent; I hang on to him for dear life, but partly because I don't know how many more times I'll have the opportunity to.

People are heading out of the city, their bags packed, most of them running—some of them riding bicycles, scooters, skateboards, or anything else that doesn't feed off of Ener-D energy.

When we reach the garage, the two of us scramble off of his duel runner and down into the living room, leaving the door hanging open so that Dragan, Harald, and Brave can walk in whenever they get here.

When I turn in his direction, he reaches for my hand. I'm startled, but I let him do it. His fingers slide into the spaces between mine, and he stands with me for a second in silence, holding my hand and looking at me.

I'm stuck in his eyes for a second until he leans in, his fingers still laced with mine, and tilts my chin up to him with his free hand—it's slow, gentle, and just as careful as the last kiss we had, out on the track. I feel like I could start floating.

When he pulls back, it's just enough that we're apart, but still propping each other up—his freed hand skims languidly over the tattoo on my shoulder.

"I'm running out of chances to kiss you," he says after a moment of silence.

It makes the lightness in me evaporate. "You're depressing me more," I reply.

"You're beautiful," he ripostes.

Heat rushes up into my cheeks. I think I can best describe this feeling as pleasantly confused. "You're fucking _delusional_."

"I'm also running out of chances to be honest, so there's that."

"You're still delusional," I say.

"If you insist," he replies, leaning away; he gives my hand a little squeeze. "Can I hold you?"

"...okay."

We sit down on the couch together, wrapped around each other, and I put my face in his jacket and breathe him in. "As long as we're running out of honesty time…" I shut my eyes. "Tell me when this started. When you first felt something. I want to know."

"I don't know when I _first_ felt anything," he says. I don't know if he would ever tell me this, if he didn't know he only had a few more hours to live. "It's been… a long time. Maybe when you went after me before my fall last summer. Maybe your duel with Aki in the hospital. Maybe in Martha's kitchen. The Catastrophe race was when I knew for absolute sure, though. When I had to admit to myself that there was no way for me to forget about feeling this way for you. You stepped up for Crow, and… out there, you looked so wild and so free. I thought then that you weren't just yourself again—you were somebody C wanted to be, what I saw in her then… And I just loved it. I didn't plan on it, but you were so ecstatic, and you were _smiling_ …" His breath moves in my hair. "Am I allowed to ask you the same question?"

"I can't say when I started, either," I tell him. "Aki and I would always talk, and she started saying things about the way we were when we were together… I didn't know what it meant. I _knew_ after Divine, though. I was scared that what I was feeling was a—a fluke, or something. That I'm just the kind of person who isn't cut out for romance. But what you were doing to try to make me feel better made me figure out that I wanted you like that. I mean, I don't have any shame about what I've done with other people, and I certainly don't regret any of it, but I did it to feel something. And I didn't need you to make me feel something. I _already_ felt something."

"...I should have told you," he replies. "I was trying to gauge how you felt—if there was anything on your end. I didn't want to take the risk if it would mess us up, not unless I was sure it would play out okay for both of us in the end. Then everything got chaotic with the Yliaster intervention in the WRGP… And the Divine thing happened. I didn't want to be selfish and burden you with more to feel. I thought it might be better if I waited a little longer, until after all of the danger passed. And you took your chances last night, and I didn't know how to react…"

"To be honest," I tell him, "I really didn't think I would get this far."

"If only we got further before this," he laughs darkly. "But I would hate to leave you mid-relationship."

"You're leaving me _pre_ -relationship, you prick, and I'll never forgive you for it."

He chuckles a little—the sound makes a thousand wonderful feelings bloom in my chest. "Promise me you'll keep going, Silvan. That my death won't affect you in a way that'll keep you from going on to do all of the things you're capable of doing."

It's a moment before I answer. "I can't promise you something like that."

He frowns. I look up toward the door in time to see Harald stride in, flanked by Brave and Dragan.

"Saying your last goodbyes?" Harald asks thinly.

The heat feels like it's leaving most of my body when he says it.

Yusei gets up, taking the rest of my warmth with him. "What's the plan?"

"Do you not fear death, Signer?"

"I'll get around to it. What's the plan?"

"The central component to the Ark Cradle is an Ener-D reactor spinning backwards," Dragan begins. "To reverse its process and prevent the entire island from crashing into Satellite, it requires more Ener-D energy to combat it directly—a car or a duel runner's worth should be enough."

"If you can reach the island, you can reverse the reactor," Harald adds. "As a gift from our patrons, in addition to our ace monsters, we were given this card." He gestures to Brave, who offers out the card for us to look at. "Rainbow Bridge Bifrost."

"We can power it with the combined influence of our Rune Eyes and energy out of our duel runners," Brave chimes.

"The problem is that the Bifrost won't last too long. It's going to require an _immense_ amount of energy and Rune power," Dragan says.

"It's likely our duel runner engines will burst," Harald confirms. "You'll only have a few minutes. You must be quick."

"Not a problem," Yusei tells him.

"You're not Physicalizers," I say, "So, what exactly powers the card? Do you need psychics?"

"No need to involve anyone else," Dragan states. "The card itself is only the basis—the skeletal structure."

"If we can get our hands on Ener-D energy, we can use it to forge the bridge," Brave adds.

"Well, great," I retort. "Since there's currently an abundance of _that_."

"How much do you need?" Yusei asks. "Will a duel runner's worth even cut it?"

"For a couple of feet, maybe," Brave scoffs. "This has to be enough energy to take you into the sky."

"What do we use, then?" I remark. I'm about to suggest that I find my way to Elysium and see if there are any Physicalizers still around who could help us. "There aren't exactly a bunch of _functional_ duel runners that we can just _hijack_ lying around."

Yusei stares off into space for a second, searching for an idea. "It can come from anywhere. Right?"

"If there's a way to get it to our duel runners, then yes," Harald tells him.

"They're going for the reactor in Satellite," Yusei states. "That's got to be functional, if it's the thing that's supposed to blow us all up. We'll just have to piece something together to channel that energy."

"Will that work?" I ask.

"It's worth a shot."

"Can the two of us build something like that in what time we've got?"

"...I'll call Bruno? I doubt Evan is going to want to help."

"Good idea."

Yusei goes scrambling for his landline; I turn to the Nordics, feeling dwarfed by them now I'm standing before them by myself.

"Do you… can any of you build things?" I ask.

"Likely not as quickly as you two can," Dragan answers.

"Tell us what to do, and we'll do it," Harald adds.

"O-Okay," I blurt. "Well, Yusei said we need something to channel Ener-D energy… I think I have an idea of how to start it? Over here."

I take them to the scrap case by the desk and start to pick through any material that looks useful—anything I think Yusei might want. All we need to make is a generator, something like a duel runner engine, and that's easy enough.

Harald has his arms full of things I've handed him when Yusei comes back over to us.

"Bruno's on his way," Yusei tells us. "Let's take that stuff and get to work—we'll have to try to be quick with this."

We help each other move everything over towards the coffee table, and together Yusei and I start assembling the pieces he tells me to put together. Maybe half an hour in, Bruno bursts in through the door, hyperventilating.

"H-Hey... I just... Ran here," he pants. "Duel runner... Doesn't work..."

"It's okay—here, help us," I say. The three of us put what we can together until Yusei seems satisfied with what we have. "We need to carry it somehow, and get it to Satellite."

"I saw a couple of shaved ice carts outside in the thoroughfare," Bruno suggests. "We could put them in those."

"Good idea. Harald, can you three help us carry these?"

The Nordics lug the converters outside, and Bruno and I go to find the carts that he mentioned before. When we manage to get them back to Poppo Time, the Nordics load the converters in, and Yusei ties the carts on to their duel runners. Yusei loads me on the back of his runner, and Bruno rides with Brave, and together the six of us ride straight out of Poppo Time, past the thoroughfare, and over the Daedalus Bridge. The city has become eerily empty in these parts. The air changes as we venture beneath the Ark Cradle, and I feel my hair stand on end.

About halfway across, Yusei gets a call on his duel screen. Jack's face pops up; Aki, Crow, and the twins are squished into the frame like they're trying to see. "Where do you think you're going?"

"We have a plan to get up to the Ark Cradle," Yusei says.

"And you didn't tell us you were going?!"

"I'm sorry, Jack," Yusei tells him. "I'm going up there. I think you should all get to safety while you can."

"You piece of—"

Yusei hangs up before Jack can continue—and I stare up over Yusei's shoulder, my hands clenched in his jacket.

"Knowing Jack, he'll be so pissed at me, he'll show up to tell me off and end up helping us," Yusei fills in.

"You're an ass," I say.

"Tell me I'm wrong!"

But he's probably not, so I don't.

We find our way straight through Satellite, which is scrambling in places with people that are trying to escape. It takes us a few extra minutes to comb through some crowds and find shortcuts, but eventually Yusei leads us to the B.A.D. Area and to the huge crater that I remember from such a long time ago, when I followed Yusei here to his fight with Rudger Goodwin. When I dove into a sea of light and sound and color to chase a boy I barely knew to the end of the world. Here, I dismount Yusei's duel runner and stand beside him.

"We need to get your duel runners down there," Yusei says.

"They've got to weigh a _ton_ ," Bruno exclaims. "At _least_. Are we supposed to lift them and pray we don't get crushed?"

Harald cuts his eyes to me. "Any help you can offer, psychic?"

"Psychic has a _name_ ," I mutter. "But, yeah. I can't Waste for very long, probably not both of these, either, so… I'm going to jump down into there."

"Uh," Yusei begins.

"Hush," I say. "Push them down into the hole, one at a time. Wait for my okay on the second and third ones."

Brave and Dragan exchange a not-so-inconspicuous look.

"Look, do you want them down there, or not?" I ask.

Reluctantly, Bruno and Harald position the first duel runner and its cart. I jump down into the crater; the only light here comes from the hole in the ceiling. A few seconds pass, and then the first duel runner and cart come sailing down—into my extended hands.

I've Internalized impact before, of course, but this is different. This impact is constant, both the gravity pressing the runner down and the runner itself, especially with the cart attached. I breathe the pressure out through my teeth and set it down with a 'THUD' on the rocks.

After I take a moment to catch my breath, pressure gathering in my knees, I shout up for the second one. I'm too late getting a hand on this one's cart, so it makes a big awful metal crushing sound when it hits. One side of it is squished up, but thankfully the engine inside is intact. Then the third duel runner comes down.

"Fucking hell," Brave calls down. "Is super strength a psychic power?"

"It would take too long to explain," I reply. "Now come help me push these."

Harald jumps down into the hole after the duel runners, and helps everybody else down afterward. He says, "Thank you. That mustn't have been easy."

I'm so startled by the 'thank you' that I can't even manage anything to say in reply.

Yusei leads us down through the tunnel, toward the end of the cavern. The rope bridge is still gone from when Rudger bombed it, but I still kind of remember the way to the path I came through with Crow. The six of us crawl along down the sheer incline, me Wasting against the duel runners and their carts to keep them from skidding, until we've at last reached the path at the bottom.

Yusei, blurry in front of me, brushes blood from under my nose. I feel his lips against my forehead. "I've got you. You've done enough. Sit down and rest."

Harald pulls me along on the back of his duel runner. I press the heel of my hand to my nose to stop the bleeding and count out my breaths to try and suppress the nausea.

We find a stairwell that we take down into a room glowing with Ener-D: the room that contains the original reactor.

I crane my neck up at it. The ghosts of my parents sit here, entrenched in all this ash and rock. I skim a hand over cracked glass on one side of one of the energy canisters, as if touching this thing my father built can at last connect me to him.

Yusei turns to Bruno as the Nordics align their duel runners. He's already got one cart hooked up to the cracked mainframe. "Bruno, do you know how what to do from here?"

"Yep, I think so."

"You should go back above ground," Harald states. "You need to be there when the bridge appears, otherwise, you'll have even less time to follow it."

"Go save this city," Dragan states.

"And don't fuck up," Brave adds.

"Thanks, I'll do that," Yusei tells them.

"Good luck," Bruno chimes. "Stay… Stay safe, Yusei."

Yusei grabs his hand, like the beginnings of a handshake, and looks meaningfully at him for a long moment before he's suddenly got a hand on my arm.

"Can you walk?" He asks.

"Yeah," I say. "I'm good. I'll be okay."

Together, we retrace our steps back through the tunnel system and up back out of the crater. Yusei boosts me up onto his shoulders, and I reach back in to pull him out with me.

I can't help but wonder if this the last time Yusei will see Bruno. When will be the last time _I_ see him?

I get on the back of Yusei's duel runner again, and we keep going, my hands tight around his torso, until we reach the ruins of the original Daedalus Bridge. The wind wakes me up and dries up the rest of the blood on my face.

Once we're finally stopped, Yusei turns to me. "You have to leave."

I swallow a lump that's formed in my throat. "No, I'm going with you."

"You're not a Signer, Silvan, and I don't know how much you can do in there. You're running low on energy as is." He lays his hand against my compass tattoo. "I want you to stay down here and get out. Take your brother, get somewhere safe. Wait for the others to get back."

"I am not going to _leave_ you here," I choke out.

"Hey," he murmurs, turning the dial on my helmet that will disengage my visor. He brushes beneath my eyes, like he can stop the tears before they come. "Everything is going to be all right."

"Don't lie," I snipe. "You're going up there and you're not coming back."

"What do you want me to tell you?" He asks.

"I don't know," I say. "Just don't lie to me. Don't tell me it's going to be okay, don't… don't say goodbye."

"I thought you said you didn't want me to lie."

"Lie to me about that."

The corners of his mouth twitch up. "I'll see you when I see you, then."

Suddenly, a beam of rainbow light bursts up from beneath the ground and shoots up towards the Ark Cradle.

"That'd be your cue," I whisper.

"I guess those Ragnarok guys aren't all _that_ bad," he says, almost in an attempt to lighten the mood.

I stare at him, not knowing how to fill this silence, and he pulls the helmet off of my head and rests it on the blacktop next to his foot. His visor disengages, he leans in, and I curl my arms around him and kiss him until I can't breathe.

"I loved you," I murmur, still close enough to him that I can taste his breath.

"I loved you, too," he says.

I hear duel runner engines off in the distance. I look behind us and spot the Blackbird, followed by Bloody Kiss and the Wheel of Fortune taking up the rear. As they get closer, I see Rua on the back of the Blackbird, and Ruka on the back of Bloody Kiss.

"Thought you guys weren't coming," Yusei tells them.

"We can't stop you from going, Yusei," Aki remarks, "but you can't stop us from following, either."

"Fair enough," he replies. "Go, Silvan. Get somewhere safe."

I slip away from him, his warmth already gone from my skin, and pick up his spare helmet to put it back into its compartment. "Good luck." I turn to Aki, Jack, Crow, and the twins. "Look after each other. Keep each other safe."

"We'll… We'll see you when we get back!" Aki says.

"Everybody ready?" Yusei asks. There's a chorus of 'yes'es from the others. He gives me a thumbs up.

I watch my friends zip up the bridge the Nordics built, into the distance—toward danger, Yusei's red duel runner at the head of the charge.

My breath, my tears, choke me, and I can't stand anymore. I rest there on the asphalt, my weight upon my knees, and watch them until they're specks in the sky. Until I can't watch anymore.


End file.
